RacoWireless, the company behind the Omega DevCloud universal-translating cloud platform, has launched an app store for the platform. The aim is to provide the interoperability needed to work in the IoT with DevCloud, and then allow companies to sell and provide their own DevCloud-compatible apps via the Application Marketplace.
The US M2M Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) provider says its DevCloud can take any communication data from a device or cloud and convert it into JavaScript Object Notation, which is effectively a universally understood format. This then allows the DevCloud to push the “translated” information to the required device or cloud so that developers don’t have to program their devices and services to talk to everything – they just need to be able to talk to the DevCloud.
So this architecture would firmly place RacoWireless at the heart of the IoT, if enough systems migrate to the DevCloud platform. When we spoke to president John Horn a few weeks ago, he told us that RacoWireless had 1,300 customers and millions of device subscriptions. With the launch of the DevCloud app store, the company is betting that making the transition easier for developers will help boost this number.
Now third parties will be able to design and sell apps for these IoT installations, on the back of the DevCloud platform. The company says “the Application Marketplace allows app developers to create new revenue streams by offering their apps to a growing community of solution and service providers – who gain the ability to add value to their new and existing customers.” RacoWireless says that the app store, built on its Position Logic platform, will leverage the DevCloud to seamlessly integrate with existing deployments.
The customer facing end of the DevCloud is contained in a web browser portal, which hosts the tools needed for the developers. The first few devices connected are free of charge, so that potential new customers can trial the service without cost before committing to a subscription.
At the launch of the DevCloud, RacoWireless’ head of software engineering, Adam Schiable, described the platform as “a web-based REST/JSON API built on a hardened bi-directional M2M communication core that supports both TCP and UDP protocols.”
This essentially means that the service acts as an API between the device and the customer cloud – almost like middleware. As far as the two ends of the communication are concerned, the DevCloud doesn’t exist – they simply receive seamless communication. The customer uses the DevCloud tools to tell it how to handle these transmissions, and the hosted service does the rest – handled by 3 US datacenters with full redundancy measures in place. After all, what good is a translator if he keels over and stops talking?
The company recognizes that speed is currently the key to a successful IoT deployment. “While ‘making it easy’ is our mantra, part of that message is speed-to-market,” said Horn. “With the Application Marketplace, we are enabling our partners and solution providers to be able to get to market faster than ever before. This brings together both service providers and application developers in a way that is clearly needed in the IoT space. Now customers can quickly enhance their existing products, or build new products with a growing library of cost-saving and feature-rich applications.”