Arrow Electronics, Inc. today announced its new “Arrow Intelligent Services” framework and set of software capabilities that will dramatically simplify the way Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), enterprises and suppliers build, deploy and manage connected and intelligent systems.
Arrow’s new global offering enables developers to more quickly and inexpensively build applications that interact with IoT hardware through standard web services and Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), rather than through complicated and proprietary interfaces and development kits. Working closely with key suppliers, Arrow will transform heterogeneous and proprietary development interfaces into a more standard and simple API-based framework. Arrow is also providing off-the-shelf management capabilities for a number of product categories, starting with gateways.
Aiden Mitchell, vice president of semiconductor marketing at Arrow, said:
“One of the biggest impediments in this exciting market is the cost and complexity of weaving together the various pieces of the IoT, each with its own unique and often complicated development environments and data structures.”
“Arrow Intelligent Services is a key initial step in our overall IoT strategy.”
The new offering complements Arrow’s core offerings in global components, enterprise computing and systems integration. The API-centric approach will help integrate the billions of discrete IoT building blocks that Arrow sells to its more than 100,000 customers worldwide. The Arrow Intelligent Services strategy and architecture will also allow customers and OEMs to select and integrate best-of-breed technologies—from semiconductors and embedded computers all the way to data hosting infrastructure, billing, analytics and third-party enterprise applications.
Arrow is collaborating with industry-pioneer, MachineShop, to bring this unique API-based architecture to market. MachineShop has been working with Fortune 500 OEMs and market-leading semiconductor companies since its inception. MachineShop was recently recognized by Gartner Research as one of a small number of IoT platform companies in its first ever “IoT Market Guide.”
“There is no company better positioned to break down the barriers of complexity in the IoT market than Arrow,” said MachineShop CEO Michael Campbell. “The marriage of our API-centric platform and their industry leadership is unparalleled in the market today.”
Phase One: Intelligent Gateways
In the first phase of its launch, Arrow is collaborating with gateway vendors Embedded Planet, Lantronix and Netcomm Wireless to provide the market’s first Intelligent Gateway offering. The Arrow Intelligent Gateway leverages a common set of API-based services to normalize set-up, configuration and management of participating vendor gateway products. Customers can simply power up and connect the gateway, input basic network and customer information through an intuitive web-based interface, and the gateway will download the appropriate software and auto-configure according to the vendor and customer parameters.
Arrow Intelligent Gateways do much more than simplify configuration and management. Arrow-enabled gateways allow customers to push intelligence and system control to the edge and seamlessly integrate with a rich set of cloud services for data ingestion, filtering, rules and events, API proxying, user, device, gateway management and more.
