In case you’ve been sleeping these past couple of years, or you like your Internet firmly on your desktop or your smartphone, then all this talk of the “Internet of Things” will have passed you by. It’s not just our watches and cars that are getting more connected, this new craze is already seeing companies like Samsung and LG connected our washing machines to the Internet and linking anything and everything they can together. So, it’s not surprising that Intel and Samsung – among others – have joined together to create the Open Interconnect Consortium.
It might not be surprising, but it could prove important in the next few years. It’s not just Intel and Samsung that have joined either, with Dell, Wind River, Broadcom and Atmel all joining the fold. The main aim of the Open Interconnect Consortium is to create open-source code that tackles the vast majority of proposals when it comes to putting together a standard to tame the theory of ‘Internet of Things’. That open-source part of the new group’s agenda is the important bit, Qualcomm already have their AllJoyn initiative and there’s also the Industrial Internet Consortium, but the Open Interconnect Consortium is more interested in creating code, a blueprint if you will, for everyone and anyone to use to get this big idea off the ground.
Their website spells this out pretty clearly, stating that the group’s aim is to create a “single solution addresses the majority of key requirements” and while there’s no code yet, all members have vowed to put engineering time in later on in the year. Focusing first on the smart home and smart office areas, code from the Open Interconnect Consortium could come as soon as early 2015, but something like this often takes a little time to get going. With one more group, one more gang of industry powerhouses looking to control and focus the theories surrounding this “Internet of Things” can Samsung, Intel, Dell and co make a difference? What do you think? Let us know in the comments below!