News & Analysis
Q&A with Panasonic CTO on IoT patents
Madison, Wis. Panasonic announcedMonday(March 23) at the Embedded Linux Conference in San Jose that it will offer royalty-free access to the software and patents the company owns to help speed the growth of Internet of Things (IoT) software and services.
Panasonic, a member of the AllSeen Alliance, also added that it would increase its IP contributions to the Alliance a cross-industry nonprofit open-source consortium.
The announcement begs a few questions. Panasonic, for example, describes itself as an IoT leader in connected business-to-business (B2B) solutions and client applications. But in which IoT segment is Panasonic a leader? Further, which specific IPs has Panasonic not yet shared with the AllSeen Alliance?
Most of all, when any company in the IoT space invokes open or open-source,the prudent response is a healthy dose of skepticism. After all, it isnt just the Qualcomm-led AllSeen Alliance thats gunning for the open IoT initiative. A rival group, the Intel-led Open Interconnect Consortium (OIC), is also operating under the open-source Linux Foundation. Both groups appear to be talking the talk, but whether theyre walking the walk remains to be determined.
Getting back to Panasonic, heres what we know and what we dont know:
What we dont know (and this is less visible to the public) is Panasonics technical expertise and specific business experience in industrial applications.
EE Times caught up with Panasonic Corporation of North American Chief Technology Officer Todd Rytting. We asked him to explain the companys latest IOT patents and software.
EE Times: Forgive my ignorance, but we didnt know Panasonic was in the B2B IoT market. Can you explain what you do there?
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