Samsung shows how big it IoT aaS is

Samsung has launched its latest assault on the world of IoT, launching a brokering service for hardware manufacturers and service providers on its Artik IoT platform.

It’s a trend which we are likely to see of more and more as the digital economy takes hold, but Samsung has started early with its own services model. It’s a relatively simple idea, but essentially creates a new aaS. Artik Monetization will essentially act an online marketplace, connecting all various different aspects of the ecosystem in one place.

The service enables device manufacturers and solution providers to collect revenue from the interactions between devices and services. And Samsung will only take a small cut of the revenues, it’s only fair of course.

“Samsung is committed to growing the IoT data economy,” said James Stansberry, Global Head of Artik at Samsung Electronics. “Samsung Artik Cloud Monetization uniquely positions us to help device manufacturers find new ways to make money from IoT and enable more applications for their customers.

“This is part of our long-term strategy to facilitate the development of secure IoT products and services, promote wide-scale interoperability, and create a platform and business model for an entire IoT ecosystem to thrive. Like the mobile phone industry, IoT will be driven by open systems, interoperability and support from innovative applications.”

With the introduction of such platforms to manage cloud business models such as IoT, there will always be services business model as well. In the digital economy, simplicity and speed are traits which every buyer wants. No-one has time to research all the different options, think of websites such as Skyscanner or Expedia, they collect all the information and present it in a simple manner for the user. Why not do the same for IoT?

It could be a very useful business model for Samsung, as there are huge complications for hardware vendors to monetize IoT as hosting applications or creating an ecosystem of third parties is a costly exercise. For a company which is big enough and already has such an ecosystem, creating such a platform could be an interesting little earner. Samsung could be onto a winner.