Finland makes the IoT connection
IOT, the Internet of Things is driving a number of Finnish companies and startups to create exceptional experiences in the field of connectivity
When British entrepreneur Kevin Ashton first coined the term Internet of Things (IoT) back in 1999, it was difficult to fathom that one day all products would be online and connected. Now, according to the most recent predictions, this reality is only a matter of years away. Here are three Finnish companies leading the change to create fresh IoT possibilities.
Wapice
Based in the city of Vaasa, software company Wapice has been supplying IoT-based systems for close to 16 years.
“Our service includes all expertise needed in designing electronics, embedded software, tool level software, mobile software and business level software,” explains managing director Pasi Tuominen. “We have over 300 experts working for us.”
Taking the first three letters of its company name from the mobile Internet, Wapice’s IoT products are known as IoT Ticket and Summium.
The recently released sixth version of IoT Ticket consists of hardware, a cloud service that includes a Big Data database, reporting and user interfaces.
“It is one of the most intuitive and fastest ways to build an IoT-environment,” Tuominen explains. “Now we have also been connecting a mass tailored CPQ-environment – our Summium product – to the IoT platform, so we are able to offer mass tailored services without any kind of programming.”
Wapice’s customers can be found across the energy sector, operating with moving machines and also within the manufacturing industry.
“We are growing fast,” Tuominen observes. “We recruited 60 new experts last year and we are going to recruit 100 more in 2016, IoT will change the world.”
Conexbird
Did you know that the hourly cost of cargo damage worldwide is 5.7 million euros? Jyväskylä’s Conexbird tackles this problem by collecting essential data from sea containers.
“We are a cleantech company with the technology and vision to make logistics greatly more efficient,” explains business development officer Niko Polvinen. “We are able to reduce cargo losses and optimise shipping like never before.”
Conexbird’s offering is spread across three patented services. First up, Conexbird Wave manages the controlling of cargo, monitoring its exact condition during the entire handling process, especially at the crucial loading stage. As the container remains unopened for the duration of its journey, ensuring everything is in its correct place from the get-go, it has a positive effect on companies’ profits in the long run.
Secondly, Conexbird Wind handles container flow optimisation. The service can be integrated into any container-handling device such as cranes and stackers to remove process bottlenecks. Finally, Conexbird Analytics boosts efficiency, algorithms and new lines of products by providing access to relevant data.
“Every day more and more shipping containers are being filled with smartphones, t-shirts and products to satisfy demanding consumers,” Polvinen states. “Everything is depending on global logistics. Conexbird has the opportunity to change logistics forever and make it more efficient to allow for better profits, while making it much more sustainable for the whole globe.”
Basen
Basen is a global IoT operator enabling the transformation from physical products to intelligent services in any industry. It is also positioning itself to become the primary platform for spimes in the Industrial Internet and IoT.
“IoT and Big Data alone are not worth much, but when you combine that with spime, you actually have an evolving algorhythmic system on top of Big Data and the network,” explains president and CEO Pasi Hurri.
Basen transforms physical products to intelligent services in any industry. Continuously developing over the past 14 years as a Software as a Service (SaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) provider, Basen offers an extremely scalable, fully distributed, resilient and secure real-time monitoring and control platform for ICT, M2M, and IoT combined.
Recently, Basen has boosted its cloud storage capabilities to meet projected growth by buying raw telecom and computing capacity in a form of physical servers.
“We are currently looking for customers that have a scalability challenge,” Hurri continues. “Sometimes they have to build internal database solutions and launch ERP products or projects, and have realised in order to go to production scale, the architecture and design have not been scalable.”
Customers already on board with the company represent the energy, manufacturing and other heavy, mission-critical industries.
“We aim to find large industrial customers that have the capability of launching totally disruptive products,” Hurri says, “but also the startups that need to ensure they can scale up if the business kicks and they have an ‘iPhone moment’.