IoT powers a range of applications—from simple sensors that monitor temperature in a production environment to camera vision that requires a complex edge artificial intelligence (AI) component.
Lenovo and Ingram Micro are partnering to bring comprehensive IoT solutions to the market.
Shelby Skrhak speaks with
Dwain Lunau, sr. channel development manager at
Ingram Micro, and
Alex Hauk, channel manager for IoT and OEM Solutions at
Lenovo, about:
- The IoT landscape
- Levels of IoT solutions
- How Ingram Micro partners with Lenovo on IoT solutions
IoT landscape
IoT reaches across every industry and vertical.
As Alex puts it: “It’s a horizontal discipline where we work with vertical specialists and partners who bring solutions to life.”
Billions of devices are connected to IoT, which makes it a complex area to work in from a reseller perspective.
“If you’re an average reseller, when someone says, ‘Give me an IoT solution,’ it’s really difficult to even qualify what that really means,” Dwain says.
It’s one reason why Dwain’s team has been pushing the conversation away from the minutiae of features and toward use cases.
“Simplistically put, an IoT solution is just arranging somewhat complicated equipment to solve simple everyday problems,” Dwain says.
Given that context, 90% of the process is identifying the problem. Once it’s identified, the process moves to skill sets and deployment.
Levels of solutions
IoT solutions range from simple, mainstream devices all the way to extremely complex, cutting-edge technology.
On one end, you have solutions that involve one sensor—say to measure temperature or for access control in an office.
The next level up may involve predictive analytics. An example would be using multiple sensors to analyze a machine and using the resulting data to preemptively ship replacement parts before the machine even fails.
On the complex end, camera vision is becoming more prevalent. Camera vision is an application where software enables the sensor to recognize objects, people, even voices, and provides an element of interactivity.
Camera vision requires edge AI to enable decision-making at the edge. In fact, 80% of all edge IoT products are powered by that edge AI component.
Lenovo and Ingram Micro
The two companies have built a program and a partnership around three main pillars:
- Training
- Technical support, or technical ideation
- Go to market
“It’s putting programmatic structure around how we want to drive these use cases,” Dwain says.
Solution architects and software engineers work with customers to uncover problems and identify solutions.
And Ingram Micro is uniquely positioned to offer an entire solution.
“We can help piece those parts together as a distributor and solve the use case end to end,” Dwain says.
According to Alex, that’s the value of partnerships like this.
“There’s no way to build all this expertise in house,” he says, “It makes a lot more sense to leverage what’s out there.”
Contact the
Lenovo Ingram Micro Team or visit
Lenovo ISG for more information.
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