Blackberry's big new plan: Internet of things!
Blackberry has announced that it is working on a platform for “internet of things” devices – could this be a way out of the company’s problems?
“Internet of Things” is the name giving to what is expected to be the coming wave of smart devices around the home – with devices like thermostats being connected to the internet.
According to Phys.Org, the company are working on what sounds like a middleware platform – so don’t expect to see Blackberry-branded toasters just yet, but it wants to provide the cloud software that enables gadgets to speak to each other.
According to the article, the goal of “Project Ion”, as its known is to “collect data from smart devices of all kinds and derive insights in real time” and to “securely access and distill meaning from massive amounts of information emerging from the booming ranks of objects being linked to the Internet”
So this could be a good chance for Blackberry to put its engineers to use on something in a market that does not yet have a clear leader (like the smartphone market). Perhaps most crucially, if successful it could give the company renewed purpose – and make it reliant on not just BBM.
