Reprinted from Dell Business

By Rick Delgado – Contributor

 

Last month I covered 10 companies innovating within the consumer Internet of Things (IoT) space. This month I’ve reviewed and selected 10 companies demonstrating innovation within the B2B sector of the IoT. While the IoT is frequently associated with consumer wearables, the B2B space has possibly even more potential in creating bankable use cases for connected devices combined with business intelligence solutions. Ten such examples are listed below.

1. Ambyint

Product description:
The Ambyint Intelligence Platform was officially launched on August 1st, 2015. This out-of-box solution can be self-installed, by operators, on any oil producing well (Sucker Rod, ESP or PCP) and managed remotely with a mobile application. Gathered information from discreet, well-mounted sensors is wirelessly transmitted from the source and analyzed by the proprietary Ambyint Analytical Engine. In real-time, motor-mounted control mechanisms carry out autonomous, micro adjustments to the pump stroke in order to maintain maximum efficiency and production. Sensors also continuously monitor for indications of component wear in order to preempt equipment failure and mitigate or, at the very least, minimize downtime.

Year founded: 2015

CEO: Nav Dhunay

Mission:
“Every oil producing well can benefit from technology-based optimization but, up until the development Ambyint, not every well could warrant the significant cost barriers to entry. In early 2014, myself and my engineering team got our first glimpse into the power and potential of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). With Industrial IoT principles we saw that, by connecting devices with sensors and making them ‘chatty’, we could mine, collate and analyze immense amounts of rich, insightful data and, by doing so, use that gathered intelligence to develop a cost effective solution that could automate oil well performance and learn to do it better every single day.” — Nav Dhunay, CEO

2. ClickSoftware

Product description:
ClickSoftware’s scheduling and mobility solutions optimize the scheduling and intelligently automate field execution by service technicians performing installation, maintenance and repair types of work. When servicing equipment in the field, information gathered prior to going onsite can mean the difference between sending a technician or not, and whether or not the technician has the skillset or the right part to actually complete the job. ClickSoftware provides the intelligent application layer in the IoT landscape for service delivery applications, enabling optimized and proactive service to customers and assets.

Year founded: 1979

CEO: Tom Heiser

Mission:
“ClickSoftware’s goal is to help service organizations exceed customer expectations by eliminating friction and frustration during the service process. Service experiences by their very nature are an inconvenience to the customer as they are associated with equipment downtime and time spent requesting and scheduling the service appointment. Leveraging IOT and connected devices, ClickSoftware is able to proactively schedule the service experience, often times allowing it to take place before the customer even knows it is needed. ” -Mike Karlskind, Vice President, Product Marketing at ClickSoftware

3. Onstream

Product description:
Onstream offers a real-time reasoning application that creates self-learning, self-managing devices that learn from their environment and how the device is used. The Onstream application is scalable to be able to enable and manage multiple connected devices.

Current CEO: Craig Macy

Year founded: 2016

Mission:
“With connected devices becoming ubiquitous by the end of the decade, and the emergence of many new IoT platforms, there was the opportunity for a company to deliver on the promise of a world of autonomous devices. Onstream provides a business-ready device cognition application that marries complex AI technologies with a friendly parameterized interface for realizing less expensive, faster, cognitively-aware devices.” -Craig Macey, CEO

4. CRG International

Product description:
Civic™ leverages Augmented Reality (AR) for practical use in the emerging smart city space. It helps in delivering information and services directly to citizens and communities in a contextual,mobile environment. For example, by accessing a smartphone’s location data and camera to detect point’s of interest, CivicAR will deliver real-time data the city chooses to provide, such as transit schedules and traffic reports.

Year founded: 2000

Current CEO: Gregory C. Curtin, PH,D., JD.

Mission:
“At the beginning of the dot-com era, we clearly understood that the Internet can have a lasting impact on technology, government, education, and more. We wanted to use digital advances to define and make a breakthrough in the public sector. Our ability to provide real-time access to multiple mediums laced with augmented reality is one of our key differentiators. Most of the mobile-focused companies and emerging AR companies focus only on their respective verticals; we stand apart in our ability to provide applications across previously isolated sectors for more complete and connected solutions.” — Dr. Gregory C. Curtin, CEO

5. Inrix

Product description:
Transportation organizations typically have to rely on assumed or surveyed data to collect analysis, which is often highly biased and costly. INRIX’s Insights Trips offers an alternate source of trip data that allows organizations to track trends and improve services. For example, local authorities could use the data on where people start and end their trips to a sporting event to better plan for traffic.

Year founded: 2004

CEO: Bryan Mistele

Mission:
“INRIX leverages technology, big data and the cloud to solve urban mobility challenges and build sustainable, smart cities. We are pioneering the connected car to create a safer and more intelligent driver experience that will ultimately improve connected lifestyles on a global scale.” -Steve Banfield, CMO

6. CrossChx

Product description:
CrossChx creates a universal patient ID to organize healthcare data. Their flagship product, SafeChx, is a fingerprint based identification console that instantly verifies patients identities and links them to their medical records. The system also offers data reconciliation by identifying duplicate medical records.

Year founded: 2012

CEO: Sean Lane

Mission:
“CrossChx was founded with a revolutionary idea — patient identity should be a fundamental right. Unfortunately that’s not the reality today. Every health care provider that a person visits may have a different view of their medical identity. At CrossChx, we’re working to fundamentally change health care by building innovative applications for providers that resolve and protect patient identities, streamline internal registration processes and create new, state-of-the-art patient experiences.” -Sean Lane, CEO

7. Tungsten Solutions, LLC

Product description:
Last month, Tungsten Solutions debuted Flex Pay, an insurance payment processing solution with the aim of helping insurance agents, credit unions and other vendors reach new customers and improve customer retention. The app combines payment processing with data analytics to help users make adjustment to sales and customer service.

CEO: Darryl Hicks

Year founded: 2014

Mission:
“There’s a lot of buzz about “the new economy” and the move to make payments frictionless to consumers, but much of the innovation to date has been on the periphery, for the 1 percent. We looked specifically at the health care payments space, and were shocked not only to discover that 67 percent of this $1T+ market is still paper-based, but the remaining electronic-based 33 percent is desperate for optimization. Our mission is to make health care and insurance payments as transparent and frictionless as using your Uber or Starbucks app. We’re bringing the 1-click world of easy payments to everyone in America, including the unbanked and underbanked, who represent 30 percent of the US population. To achieve this, we’ve partnered with Fortune 500 financial institutions (FI’s) to develop an innovative payments platform that can run on any “rails” of the economy.” -Darryl Hicks, CEO

8. Ekoor

Product description:
Ekoor offers a green proximity beacon commonly used for location based marketing, loyalty programs and mobile payments. The beacon is powered by indoor/solar light and comes with an alternate battery when sufficient lighting is unavailable.

Green Beacons

CEO: Gayan Gamage

Year founded: 2014

Mission:
“EKOOR is not only about Light Powered proximity Beacons, We are building a green IOT platform for smart homes, smart agriculture etc and already have some other products under development. We truly believe that some of these smart devices could just be powered from energy around them like our Beacons and It is in EKOOR’s DNA to find out these possibilities and do the right thing for our environment.” — Gayan Gamage, CEO

9. Ayla Networks

Product description:
Ayla Networks’end-to-end platform for consumer-goods manufacturers is intended to replace “build-your-own IoT alternatives. The platform accelerates the development, support and enhancement of connected products for the Internet of Things. Delivered as a cloud platform-as-a-service, Ayla’s IoT platform enables secure connectivity for any device, provides data analytics for manufacturers, and gives their end-customers a feature-rich experience.

CEO: David Friedman

Year founded: 2010

Mission:
“We enable manufacturers to deliver connected IoT products and to use the data generated through connectivity for business-intelligence feedback loops.The end game of the IoT is all about the data generated by connected products—how best to capture and use it to gain tangible benefits, without having to become a data scientist first.” — David Freidman, CEO and Co-founder

10. STRATIS

Product description:
STRATIS’ access, energy, and automation management system was built specifically for the multifamily and campus community marketplace. The system integrates with other IOT devices, such as the Schlage Control Bluetooth door lock, giving property owners control over various connected devices.

Year founded: 2013

CEO: Felicite Moorman

Mission:
“Our mission is to enable the global commercial residential market to access full building control, down to the unit, saving them energy and maintenance costs while dramatically improving sustainability and security. We originally launched specifically to provide wireless energy control (not mere management) to multifamily property owners and managers. Competitors wanted to treat commercial residential identically to commercial properties, providing a controller per unit at $1,000 apiece. It’s a nice job if you can get it, but that costs a 300 unit apartment tower $300,000 before you’ve saved an energy dollar. Multifamily is a completely underserved market and just what a bootstrapped technology company needs to address in order to disrupt a market.” -Felicite Moorman, CEO