Fujitsu Launches IoT Platform to Facilitate the Creation of Business and the Formation of a Global Ecosystem

Tokyo, November 13, 2014

Fujitsu today announced the launch of a new initiative called "Human-Centric IoT" which is designed to facilitate the creation with customers of valuable new businesses that, based on an understanding of customers and consumer needs, employ all kinds of digital information, with the goal of spurring new business and social innovation. To bring about Human-Centric IoT, Fujitsu is building a global ecosystem with business partners and launching an IoT⁽¹⁾ platform to serve as a venue for generating innovation with customers.

The IoT platform, which enables access to an easy-to-use cloud-based application development environment, is a comprehensive systems environment that, for IoT models⁽²⁾ whose feasibility has been validated, can bring together a variety of products from Fujitsu, including sensors and devices, networks, middleware, and applications. Use of these resources makes it easy and inexpensive for customers to quickly create new business models.

The IoT platform is also designed to be widely used, not only by customers, but as a platform where vendors providing products and services can verify technologies that can be used by customers when creating new business models, with the aim of forming a global ecosystem.

Fujitsu has received support for this initiative from business partners and a multitude of companies, and plans to validate businesses with over 100 enterprise customers in the next year.

Fujitsu has already systematized product and services initiatives in such high-growth areas as cloud computing, big data, mobile, and security to support innovation on the part of enterprises and society. By combining these initiatives with Human-Centric IoT, Fujitsu aims to further broaden and accelerate the scope of business and social innovation.

Background

Today, while there is a need for a variety of business entities, organizations, and companies to continuously provide value to consumers in the form of greater convenience, affordability, safety, and security, the technologies of the ICT field, including sensors and devices, networks, and the cloud, continue to evolve on a daily basis, bringing about the IoT era, in which information about people, things, and the environment is digitized and can be transmitted over networks. By mobilizing this information, consumers, companies, and society can visualize what they would like to see accomplished or what they need to do, spurring moves to bring innovation to actual business activities and social life.

New Initiative

While showing customers how the Internet of Things can contribute to their business, Fujitsu will help customers quickly establish an IoT business model and promote jointly created businesses by working with customers to generate business innovation.

1. Fujitsu will provide an IoT platform to generate customers' IoT business innovation.
2. To enable customers using the platform to quickly get their businesses up and running, Fujitsu will form a global ecosystem for open innovation, alliances with business partners, and core competencies.
3. Fujitsu will generate innovation by using its IoT platform to establish proof of concept for new technologies with business partners and validate the business models of its customers.
4. After a customer's business model has been validated, Fujitsu will also provide support in delivering a commercial environment.

Furthermore, Fujitsu will leverage the knowledge that it gains from this initiative and work to increase the value of the ecosystem by formulating reference models, standardizing architectures, and promoting improvements in interoperability with the Industry Internet Consortium (IIC)⁽²⁾, as well, for which it is the sole Japanese company to be a steering-committee member.

About the IoT Platform

1. In collaboration with IQP Japan Corporation, a developer of applications and platforms, Fujitsu will provide up to six months free use of an application development and execution platform via the Fujitsu Cloud.
2. Fujitsu will provide a comprehensive system environment that combines all of the Fujitsu products and services relating to the IoT model.
3. Fujitsu will also use this environment to validate its own advanced technologies.

Features of the Products, Services, and Technologies Underpinning Fujitsu's Comprehensive IoT System

1. IoT systems need to meet the requirements of the IoT field, such as the ability to both process large volumes of data and to do it in real time, the ability to flexibly and quickly respond to changes based on the environment, time, and events, and the ability to ensure a high level of security, including the security of devices and sensors. Primarily through Fujitsu Laboratories Ltd., the Fujitsu Group provides the following advanced technologies that are optimized for IoT systems.
   • System performance optimization technology

     A distributed platform that, by optimizing system performance, delivers an environment that people can comfortably use.
     Press release: "Fujitsu Develops Distributed Service Platform Technology to Optimize Cloud Environments over a Wide-Area Network" - March 14, 2014.

   • Real-time sensing technology

     Real-time sensing technology that, through instantaneous sensing and data analysis, delivers the value of immediacy.
     Press release: "Fujitsu Develops Eye Tracking Technology" - October 2, 2012.

   • Data anonymization security technology

     Security technology that, while keeping data that could be used to identify individuals confidential, enables data to be analyzed and for many people to enjoy the benefits of big data analytics.
     Press release: "Fujitsu Laboratories Develops Technology Capable of Searching Encrypted Data to Maintain Privacy" - January 15, 2014.

2. Fujitsu offers a complete line of products and services that are part of IoT systems, from sensors and devices to networking, cloud services, big-data services, and security technology, which can be adapted to any usage scenario.

   Features of products and services that support IoT systems

   Area	Features
   Sensors & Devices	The company's long history developing sensing technology and middleware that performs real-time processing of data is available for any customer purpose in the form of devices and sensor-control modules that accurately detect the state of people, things, animals, etc. This includes Android tablets and smartphones for enterprises, head-mounted displays (in prototype), etc.
   Networks	Fujitsu can optimize performance for IoT systems, thanks to the world's first gateway that can connect to all mobile, broadband, and existing networks, and distributed computing control that can implement real-time services even over limited network bandwidth. This includes the FUJITSU Managed Infrastructure Service FENICSⅡ M2M Service and FUJITSU NETWORK M2M-GW for FENICS (Currently only available in Japan) .
   Cloud	With the ability to combine and integrate services and data, and to help build new business systems, companies can smoothly transition to a prototype environment of the new IoT platform and deploy to a global commercial environment. This includes the FUJITSU Intelligent Society Solution Akisai Food and Agricultural Cloud and the FUJITSU Intelligent Society Solution SPATIOWL.
   Big data	The company can offer its distributed parallel-processing technology and compound event-processing technology, its software and services for processing huge volumes of data quickly and in real time, and its team of specialists to analyze information for more sophisticated use of big data. This includes the FUJITSU Intelligent Data Service Data Curation Service (Currently only available in Japan) and the FUJITSU Software Interstage Big Data Parallel Processing Server.
   Security	The entire flow of information, from sensor-data collection to analysis and use, is encrypted for protection, and with Fujitsu's technologies for signing and biometric authentication, the company can ensure that data is used effectively while preserving privacy.

Examples of Fujitsu IoT Technology in Use

Fujitsu has already started to provide business validation services for customers using IoT products, services and technologies in a variety of fields, as well as internally for group companies.

1. Kaga, Inc.

   For Kaga, Inc.'s street lighting business, Fujitsu has started to validate network connections for a large-scale deployment that involves remote monitoring of LED streetlight conditions and control over lighting color as a way to further improve the safety, security, and quality of life of citizens.

2. Metawater Co., Ltd.

   A field trial has commenced at Aizu-Wakamatsu City's water treatment plant involving the use of wearable devices and big data analytics for equipment maintenance inspection work. The field trial will verify whether the wearable devices improve the efficiency of maintenance inspectors and the practicality of having them train other employees in the use of the technology. It will also assess whether big data analytics improves the quality of equipment maintenance inspection and maintenance management work.

3. Insight Centre for Data Analytics and CASALA: Research Institutions in Ireland⁽⁴⁾

   Fujitsu Ireland Ltd. and Fujitsu Laboratories are conducting joint testing with research institutions in Ireland. For the elderly and people receiving medical care living in smart houses, wearable sensors and sensors embedded in the house and surrounding environment gather multifaceted data to help them to live autonomously while helping medical professionals understand, visualize, and analyze their conditions. The partners are and developing a system that supports health management and everyday living, and aim to use such systems to build solutions for the elderly and people receiving medical care.

4. Taiwan's Industrial Technology Research Institute (Information and Communications Research Laboratories)

   Fujitsu Laboratories is conducting joint testing with Taiwan's Industrial Technology Research Institute (Information and Communications Research Laboratories).
   With the aim of mitigating and preventing landslides and avalanches, the partners have begun testing technology that, by linking wireless sensors, collects environmental data comprehensively and over a wide area, as well as systems for disaster mitigation and prevention.

5. Aizu-Wakamatsu Akisai Plant Factory

   Fujitsu has conducted testing for the Akisai Plant Factory in Aizu Wakamatsu. The environmental management dashboard collects a range of environmental and operational information and presents changes in important operational indices to managers and executives to help them make better business decisions, with the end goal of optimizing the overall management and production from the Akisai Plant Factory.

6. Yamanashi Plant of Fujitsu I-Network Systems

   Fujitsu is conducting joint testing with Cisco Systems G.K. and smart-FOA Co. to optimize operations of the PBX production line of Fujitsu I-Network Systems' Yamanashi Plant. Tests are being conducted on "increasing efficiency of the production setup process," and "shortening equipment downtime" by accumulating and visualizing information that ties information on events occurring at the plant with background data (such as production-equipment logs and production results).

7. Fujitsu Network Solutions Limited

   To improve the working environment and increase safety at electrical-installation jobsites, Fujitsu Network Solutions is collecting location-based sensing data on construction-site workers along with the temperature and humidity of their surroundings to test the visualization and management of jobsite work environments.

Endorsements

• Comment from Edzard Overbeek, Senior Vice President, Cisco Services, Cisco Systems, Inc.

  With this initiative, I believe that Fujitsu will greatly contribute to the enablement of Internet of Everything connecting people, data, processes, and things. Cisco and Fujitsu have already started joint testing and business evaluation. As one of the founding members of the Industrial Internet Consortium, Cisco is excited to see Fujitsu, who is the only member of steering committee of the Consortium from Japan, offer their IoT platform and business infrastructure to a wider selection of customers and ecosystem partners across various industries.

• Comment from Doug Davis, Vice President and General Manager, IoT Group, Intel Corporation

  The Internet of Things is a rapidly growing market but complex to deploy. Intel is providing a foundation for IoT with integrated solutions based on Intel architecture with software from McAfee and Wind River to accelerate the deployment of the IoT. Coupled with industry standards and the IoT initiatives from Fujitsu we expect the IoT market to continue to expand and accelerate.

• Comment from Sei Kohno, Chief Executive Officer, RT. Works Co., ltd.

  At RT. Works, we are developing our motorized walking assistance cart for senior citizens that have some difficulty maintaining their balance while walking so that they have more opportunities to get out of the house and expand the scope of their activities, enabling them to lead long, fulfilling lives in good health. In addition, by using Fujitsu's IoT platform, we believe we can provide new value, such as protective services and health management, based on the variety of data we could retrieve from equipment sensors.

• Comment from Yuta Inoue, Head of Accelerator Business, TBWA\HAKUHODO\QUANTUM

  Fujitsu's initiative to create an Internet of Things ecosystem with players around the world, each with their own areas of expertise, rather than insisting that everything be developed in-house, will result in the best form of joint creation from open innovation, which is exactly what TBWA\HAKUHODO\QUANTUM is seeking to achieve.

• Comment from Takuya Kohara, Senior Managing Executive Officer and Executive General Manager, Enterprise Business, Microsoft Japan Co., Ltd.

  As infrastructure and development platforms supporting IoT solutions, Microsoft has such representative products and services as Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Windows, and Microsoft Developer Network, and we are proposing the Internet of Your Things to enable customers to quickly put to use the things, infrastructure, and data they already have. We would like to cooperate in Fujitsu Limited's provision of its IoT platform and, through joint validation work and training of engineers, collaborating to quickly develop successes in a broad range of industries.

• Comment from Guy Kaplinsky, President, IQP Japan Corporation

  I am very pleased that Fujitsu's IoT platform is using IQP's systems. IQP's systems enable people, things, and data to be linked together to create added value in a variety of ways, all without the need for programming, making them very effective for advancing the cycle of business validation on the IoT platform.

At present, Fujitsu has received support for its promotion of joint business creation from the following companies:

• Cisco Systems, Inc.
• Intel Corporation
• KDDI Corporation
• Orange Business Services
• RT Works Co., Ltd.
• smart-FOA
• TBWA\HAKUHODO\QUANTUM
• Telenor Connexion AB
• Vodafone
  
• Kaga Inc.
• SoftBank Telecom Corp.
• IQP Japan Corporation
• Microsoft Japan Co., Ltd.
• Verizon Japan Ltd
• Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd.

Target

Validate business plans with over 100 enterprise customers in the next year.