Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Nokia will work together to sell Internet of Things solutions to industrial / manufacturing customers and municipal governments looking for smart city applications starting next year, the firms announced on Wednesday.
The technology tag team points to research firm Markets and Markets that predicts the IoT market for smart cities and manufacturing will reach $161 billion USD by 2020. Manufacturers will want to improve productivity and cities with growing populations will need to find ways to operate more efficiently, maintain infrastructure, and be sustainable, is the thinking.
Smart city services refer to helping a government develop a platform that allows for digital delivery of services, says Antonio Neri, executive vice-president and general manager of enterprise group at HPE. Also it would create opportunities to monetize that platform for private sector applications as well.
To make that happen, HPE will be able to take the relevant data and put it into forecasting models with its CMS portfolio, Neri says, but it needs Nokia’s help to collect the data. Not only is it developing 5G wireless networking equipment, but it has a good relationship with telecommunication companies in many regions.
“You need connectivity,” he says. “You need routing capabilities.”
Smart city solutions could include applications like smart lighting and smart buildings, according to HPE. Solutions for the manufacturing and industrial vertical will include asset management, predictive maintenance.
There’s no details on the specific solutions yet, but they will combine connectivity, core networking, data aggregation, and compute technologies. A proof-of-concept in the works will combine Nokia’s routing with HPE’s hybrid IT for joint project delivery models.
Collaboration isn’t new to Nokia and HPE, which have already done joint deals with 25 enterprise and service provider customers.