Smith Micro and Option Enhance Manageability for the Internet of Things

Demonstration of CloudGate Gateway With NetWise Management Platform to Debut at Mobile World Congress.

Smith Micro Software, Inc., a leading provider of wireless and mobility solutions, and Option, the company connecting Things to the Cloud, today announced a partnership to enhance machine-to-machine (M2M) and mobile hotspot environments with intelligent remote policy management and value-add content delivery. Through this partnership, Smith Micro’s NetWise® solution will be integrated with Option’s CloudGate M2M gateway, with a demonstration planned for Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

CloudGate is an M2M Gateway solution for LAN to WWAN routing that includes an open M2M application development environment and a cloud-based provisioning service all in a single base unit. It meets all the market requirements for a robust, secure, expandable, and feature rich routing platform that will provide the reliability customers need in the field.

NetWise is an intelligent, policy-on-device platform that provides carrier-grade management and control over mobile devices to reduce support costs and accelerate time to market for M2M solutions. NetWise uses standard protocols, such as OMA-DM from the Open Mobile Alliance, to implement policy-based device and application configuration, intelligent network selection, and data efficient firmware and software updates to mobile devices.

Martin Croome, Senior Director, Global M2M Product Strategy at Option said:

“One of the key advantages of remote policy management is avoiding the need to physically touch devices in the field, which is expensive and adds delays to the rollout of service improvements.”

“We’re pleased to work with Smith Micro to bring additional manageability, remote configurability, and on device intelligence to our highly-reliable, cost-effective CloudGate solution.”

“Secure, efficient, and flexible device and application management, along with high Quality of Service, are important success factors in any M2M deployment,” said Jim Mains, Chief Strategy Officer at Smith Micro. “NetWise provides great value to customers using CloudGate devices by embedding remote diagnostics, security and authentication management, analytics, real-time alerts, and other policy management features at the device end-point, eliminating the need to send data to the cloud. These features save money in wireless data costs, and allow M2M environments to be more flexible and responsive.”

Option and Smith Micro will collaborate on mobile M2M initiatives such as Industrial Telematics, Retail Location Based Systems, and Fleet/Asset Tracking. In addition, the companies will work together on general connectivity use cases, such as in-vehicle Wi-Fi hotspot management, where user entitlement and content can be dynamically managed via a captive portal based on location, user credentials, and a variety of network and device conditions.