Intel has just announced its new low-power Quark chips for IoT devices, along with software and a suite of cloud services. Intel competitor ARM will announce its IoT products and services next week.
The process of connecting every machine, process, and internal and external system will make factories and businesses more efficient than ever, as long as there is a unifying suite of products, services, and software pulling all of it together.
One example application, mentioned by Intel CEO Brian Krzanich in an article on ITWorld, was the use of RFID tags in all Levi Strauss products in a store in San Francisco. RFID data was collected in the cloud, and store managers were provided with the most up-to-date inventory numbers as well as the locations of products that weren’t correctly returned to shelves. The project led to a 3% improvement in inventory accuracy leading to a 1% increase in sales.
Intel subsidiary Wind River has developed two open-source operating systems for developers building IoT devices: Rocket and Pulsar Linux.
