DT says welcome to the House of Clouds

In a move of consummate German straight-forwardness, Deutsche Telekom has decided not to wait for the rest of the world to catch-up and is simply getting on with its own IoT stuff.

While IoT will be the biggest thing in technology since ever, the market is currently highly fragmented as standards agencies struggle to keep up with the speed of commercial deployment. Many companies around the world are patiently waiting for an internationally accepted standard before powering forward, but not those impulsive Germans, as DT launches a multi-IoT platform at the House of Clouds, which is what it calls its cloud datacentre in Biere.

While it isn’t the most efficient it’s a no-nonsense, ‘we’re going to show off how great we are at engineering’ move, stealing a march on the IoT market. Instead of waiting for a common solution, DT will start by offering a proposition that unites various platforms available right now. The House of IoT will begin with the Azure IoT Suite from Microsoft, followed by Cisco Fog and the IoT platform from Huawei.

“According to a study by PAC, we’ve only captured five percent of the potential of the IoT,” said Anette Bronder, Director of T-Systems’ Digital Division. “This is due, among other factors, to the highly fragmented market, which requires users to manage many different specialist suppliers. We now offer a scalable, pan-industry platform, together with plug-and-play starter packages to help companies begin using the IoT.”

DT’s platform will take the role of translator, interpreter and distributor, collecting the data from the various gateways before putting it into the correct language and then sending it on its way. With this move and also its partnership with Microsoft, DT is quietly creating a useful niche in the industry as the friendly data custodian. The fact the data will be housed in Germany, subject to strict German data protection laws, makes the position more attractive to potential customers in light of the data privacy saga which is on-going.

Elsewhere in the cloud world, DT is rumoured to be preparing a bid for German web hosting provider Host Europe Group (HEG), according to Reuters. HEG is one of Europe largest web-hosting companies, valued in the region of $1.7 billion, though its owner Cinven is in the market to sell due to market volatility following the Brexit result.

While the growth and hype around the implementation of IoT has seen a lot of posturing from vendors, few companies have set themselves apart from the static. DT is setting itself apart as the operator who you can trust with your data which could prove to be a very useful move as IoT becomes more and more normalized.