Lantronix Helps System Integrators Launch Custom Portals For Industrial IoT With New Software Solution
About Lindsey O'Donnell
Lantronix is launching new IoT software at this week's IoT Solutions World Congress to help industrial OEMs deploy and scale networks of connected devices and manage their lifecycles – and the company wants to use its partners to push out the new solution.
The new software, MACH10 Global Device Manager, is an industrial IoT application that enables OEMs to remotely manage and monitor their installed base of connected devices, said Jeff Benck, president and CEO of Lantronix.
"There's definitely companies out there focusing on software platforms, but we've been providing systems to OEMs for years with connectivity hardware solutions. Our channel knows us and what we sell, and now we're making the natural evolution from hardware to software and cloud connectivity, and enabling our channel to provide a richer solutions play," he said.
Lantronix, is a specialized networking company that provides smart IoT and M2M (machine to machine) connectivity solutions for various industries – primarily the industrial market - such as IoT gateways and modules, infrastructure management IT, and mobile printing products.
Now, the company's new software solution will help extend that portfolio beyond hardware.
The IoT software tool integrates easily with devices and systems through REST API calls (which enable developers to perform requests via the HTTP protocol) – meaning that OEMs don't need to learn new programming languages.
MACH10 Global Device Manager touts features that enable OEMs to create custom portals that provide secure multi-user and role-based access while keeping customers' devices, applications and data separate – so systems integrators, for their part, don't need to navigate through multiple portals and access points.
Lantronix' channel, which is spearheaded by its Premier Partner Program and comprised of VARs, systems integrators and distributors, can extend their own consulting services and provide additional value to the new software capabilities, said Benck.
"We'll be doing some partner training around [MACH10]. The channel is interested in IoT – they get the fact that there's a huge opportunity here, and at the same time they know it’s a value play. It's not just about how can they distribute some hardware – the more they can participate in the solution development, the more they can increase the value add."
“Tech Data is excited to extend the Lantronix MACH10 solution to our IoT partners," said Michelle Curtis, director of Tech Data’s IoT Practice for North America, in a statement. "The MACH10 platform offers the agility, flexibility, and scale needed for integrating into industrial environments.”
Moving forward, Benck said that he will continue to focus on channel partners as the company pushes its strategy in the IoT management space.
"As a company we've said we will continue to participate in the IT management space, but invest the majority of our business in the IoT segment," he said. "We will also be doubling down on the channel – since I've joined we've hired a worldwide channel manager and increased our marketing with the channel. Our growth strategy involves leveraging our partners and in the future there's some systems integrators we want to add as we go forward."
