Particle brings IoT cloud to enterprise users

Internet of Things platform provider Particle announced its enterprise deployment platform, Particle Cloud, on Tuesday.

The platform has been in beta for a few months and Particle claims it has already been used by Fortune 500 companies.

Particle Cloud makes IoT deployment a faster and less cumbersome experience. In a press release, the firm said it aims to ship “secure, reliable, and easy to use” IoT products in under six months.

“IoT is a new industry with huge potential. However, the unfortunate reality is that many businesses’ IoT initiatives flounder or fail,” said Zach Supalla, Particle co-founder and CEO. “The strongest business case for building an IoT product is irrelevant if you can’t execute. Companies who work with Particle actually ship their products.”

That’s evidenced by the company’s work with Keurig, which used the Particle Cloud to start collecting data on thousands of brewers.

“We made more progress on our first day with Particle than we had in months without them,” said Michael Cunningham, chief information officer of Keurig. “Within six months we began collecting data from thousands of connected brewers in the hands of consumers.”

Particle Cloud has a passel of projects

Particle has also worked with Briggs Healthcare and French utility giant Engie. It cites more than 20 crowdfunded projects it has worked on, which have raised “millions of dollars.”

Companies working on the Particle Cloud platform are able to prototype devices for under $20 and have a working model in a few weeks. From there, developers can choose to launch the product or scale it to meet demand. Large firms can take advantage of Particle’s Device Management Console, to manage an entire fleet of IoT devices.

Particle has partnered with a wide range of companies to make the enterprise platform inclusive. Google, Microsoft, and IFTTT provide customer insights to Particle customers, Broadcom, Cypress, u-blox, and ST deliver hardware solutions, and T-Mobile, Twilio, and Telefonica provide networking for IoT devices.