IoT Startup Foghorn Systems Fortifies Connected Industrial Strategy Through Systems Integrators, Consultants
Startup Foghorn Systems, which develops software for industrial IoT solutions at the edge, is stepping its partner strategy to keep up with "strong demand in every major industrial sector."
"We are proud to announce the creation of the most comprehensive and far-reaching, end-to-end ecosystem established to date for IIoT edge analytics and machine learning technology solutions," said CEO David King in a statement. "This partner ecosystem is already delivering high value customer-validated IIoT product and services that tap into the tribal knowledge of industrial operators while bringing the power of big data analytics and machine learning technology to address the core operational and digital transformation challenges that all industrial organizations are facing today."
Mountain View, Calif.-based Foghorn Systems, founded in 2014, develops an industrial Internet of Things software stack that combines technologies for blending sensor data from industrial machines with cloud-based management, analysis and machine learning capabilities.
The company, which landed $12 million in Series A funding in 2016, targets vertical markets like manufacturing, oil and gas, power and water, as well as smart building applications.
More recently the IoT company launched its next-generation industrial IoT software platform, Lightning ML, which provides integrated machine learning capabilities and is universally compatible across all major industrial IoT systems.
King told CRN in a July interview that systems integrators with specialized knowledge of OT will play a "critical component" in consulting for and implementing the IoT platform for industrial customers.
"As companies push into the IIoT game it is creating new opportunities for consulting partners … customers don't just want to take big data and process it for insights, they want to take sensors and figure out how to make their industrial processes better," he told CRN.
As part of its partner ecosystem, Foghorn Systems is working with an array of partners, including industrial IoT consultants and systems integrators who provide domain-specific data science, application software development and on-site implementation services for the Foghorn Lightning edge analytics and software platform, said King. These include partners like PWC, Tech Mahindra, UNIADEX and NEC.
Meanwhile, the company is also working with partners like GE Predix, Bosch and Yokogawa to integrate its platform into their industrial equipment, automation and industrial IoT software platforms; as well as gateway systems built on Intel and ARM processors – including systems from Dell, Cisco and HPE.
Foghorn Systems also has fleshed out its platform by partnering with industrial cloud players like GE Predix, Microsoft, AWS and SAP HANA.
Looking forward, the company will continue to extend its partner ecosystem to keep up with the demand for industrial "edge intelligence" software, said King.
"We are seeing strong demand in every major industrial sector including manufacturing, oil and gas, power and water, mining, transportation, smart buildings and smart cities," he said. "The industrial organizations in each of these sectors -- and all the technology companies that serve them -- are looking for breakthrough edge computing solutions to generate the operational efficiency and business-value creation benefits provided by IIoT data science technology without the bandwidth and hosting costs, cybersecurity risk and application latency associated with sending vast amounts of sensor data to a cloud or data center environment."