The Dell OEM Solutions team is at CommunicAsia 2015 in the tropical heat of Singapore this week, where we are speaking on and exhibiting our solutions for telecommunications, and also announced how we are enabling customers’ Internet of Things (IoT) development in Asia Pacific.
Glen Burrows, the Executive Director and GM for Dell OEM in APJ, led a session on Embedded Computing in IoT. He shared the experiences of our customer Saijo Denki, one of the largest high-quality air conditioner manufacturers in Thailand.
Thailand is one of the most hot and humid countries on Earth, so air conditioning systems work hard all year long. Saijo Denki’s new air conditioners will integrate intelligent data aggregation sensors and data analytics solutions on the backend of each unit. With each unit being connected to the Internet, the system will have the ability to determine the building’s internal and external temperatures or relative humidity, subsequently adjusting the air conditioner’s temperature settings based on the data it receives. Each air conditioner is also equipped with the ability to self-diagnose and transmit warnings in the event of a malfunction, and has an analytics function that can provide energy usage reports to the building manager’s device of choice. Smarter air conditioning leads to better managed, better maintained and expected lower costs of air conditioning, as well as higher comfort for building occupants.
I had the honor of moderating a panel discussion on IoT and its development in Asia. A key insight came from Andrew Milroy, SVP of ICT Research at Frost and Sullivan. Andrew spoke of the development of Smart Cities in Asia and how he’s seeing some of the most exciting developments coming ‘bottoms up’ from smaller cities across the region. These cities set out to solve a local problem, such as parking, traffic or crime and are finding often more effective solutions than are seen from more traditional top-down approaches. We also heard from Ankur Gupta, the IT Director for Big Data at Sears, on their experiences with providing free wifi in stores. The team expected to find customers leveraging the wifi to compare prices with competitors, but instead they found customers were going on sites like Youtube to help kids stay contented and entertained while parents shopped. Sears has been using these insights to shape their marketing strategies.
Back in our booth, the team showcased our well-traveled building automation demo, and shared how the new Dell IoT gateways can benefit Dell partners and customers. We met up with a wonderful array of telecom customers to discuss how best to make their networks future ready and shared our vision of what it means to be truly open. We had members of our Telecom ecosystem demonstrate their amazing solutions including Cobham Wireless (Aeroflex) with their NFV solution, and Artesyn showcasing their video transcoding solution.
Join us next week, when Dell Team IoT works to beat the heat at IoTx Dubai in the Middle East and IBCon in Texas!
