For over two years MachNation has posited that the worlds of IoT and IT would eventually merge in order to better serve large and mid-sized enterprises. As IoT becomes more mainstream, there must be improvements in two key areas — IoT technology and IoT channel capacity/capabilities. This blog highlights an example of an IoT Platform-Enabled Solution (PES) vendor leading to build channel capacity and capabilities by borrowing from IT best practices.
On 26 April 2016, Davra Networks – an IoT PES – announced a partnership with Fast Lane to offer a four new Davra certification courses. The courses help services companies design and develop solutions using Davra Networks’ RuBAN offering. Fast Lane, a global provider of technology training and certification programs, will be offering these courses online and in-person. All certification courses feature real-world, hands-on labs and are delivered by certified Fast Lane instructors in 30 countries.
Why is this seemingly minor news so important? There are three main reasons.
We cannot have exponential growth in the IoT sector without more channel capacity and stronger capabilities. Currently, IoT technology vendors have a difficult time meeting demands from customers for IoT technology testing, implementation and support. There are too few qualified IoT sales engineers, solution architects and technical designers to meet demand in the market. One of the best ways to effectively scale the quantity and quality of these technologists is to institute best practices from the IT industry and set-up excellent certification programs to increase channel capacity and quality.
An IoT PES vendor without an extended ecosystem of solution providers is like a hamburger without fries (or fish without chips, if you prefer). MachNation defines an IoT PES as a solution-centric offering optimized to reduce the time to deliver a fully-enabled, end-to-end, vertical IoT solution to customers. A PES vendor relies on a product-plus-services model; an application development lifecycle managed by in-house and partner resources; and either a rapid application builder or template-based framework. PES vendors use a direct or partner-led sales model and engage a core set of systems integrators to create validated, rapid and secure industry- or application-centric IoT solutions for customers. There are many PESs in the market, but without the extended team of solution providers that can provide integration and maintenance support services most PESs will not find success in bringing their myriad proof-of-concepts to real-world deployments. MachNation was the first independent analyst firm to identify, define and research the category of IoT PES in its seminal research in 2015.
Visionary footsteps in the IoT sector are often taken by start-up companies like Davra Networks. The world’s largest technology companies and enterprises are certainly able to scale resources better in IoT, but it is start-up companies like Davra that continue to innovate quickly and outpace their larger technology competitors. MachNation sees the development of IoT certification programs as a precursor to offering solutions to smaller-sized enterprises and thereby sharing the financial and operational benefits of IoT solutions to a broader business audience.
For more information about the way that Davra Networks has structured these IoT certification courses, please see http://www.fastlaneus.com/davra-training.