Starting from human- to- machine communication to machine-to machine communication, Internet of Things is indeed the most phenomenal revolution in IT sector. Studies have estimated that there are close to 15 billion connected devices which would be increasing to 60 billion by the year 2020. These connected devices would be generating trillions of data; data that business capitalizes on. With the plethora of data flowing in, IoT is the only way to fetch these data and make use of it effectively in business. This is the reason why enterprises are focusing more on offering IoT solutions. However, the customized solutions can be very expensive, time consuming and even the development stages are prolonged. Zolertia, a company based out of Catalonia, Spain develops modularized product which dramatically reduces the ‘time-to-market’ of any new IoT solution.
Inception Story
Marc Fàbregas-Bachs, the Founder and CEO of Zolertia is an astute entrepreneur. Living by the quote of Nolan Bushnell, “The true entrepreneur is a doer not a dreamer”, Marc has always been enthusiastic about entrepreneurship. Zolertia being his fifth start up, Marc has an extensive experience in technology. While Marc has always been an enthusiast of technology, his last four ventures are focused on the IoT technologies and applications.
The story of Zolertia stepping into developing hardware for IoT applications is very edifying. After working in Internet of Things from the engineering point of view, the company forecasted the scope of development and innovation in this sector. The team realized that there was a potential need of finished products instead of customized solutions. During those days the team had time and the opportunity to detect the industry needs and requirements. This helped the team analyse what kind of solutions would add value to the customers. Considering all these factors and having a strong conviction that IoT will be a game changer, Zolertia placed its bet into this technology. Having more than 270 customers and serving more than 30 countries worldwide, proves the global accolade Zolertia has earned.
Enduring and High-Powered solutions
The intelligence of any company lies in its efficiency in fixing a major problem. Zolertia have mastered this intelligence very gracefully. Having a keen eye for observation, Zolertia’s team of expert engineers successfully develops modularized products that help in the smooth functioning of IoT applications. These products, being cost-effective also comes with other perks like reduced ‘time-to-market’.
Zoul; the patent product of Zolertia, is the other key facet that sets the company apart from others. This product is an open IoT wireless embedded module supporting the 6LoWPAN/OpenThread communications protocols. The Zoul includes all the embedded software that one needs to build IoT solutions based in LAN connectivity and star and mesh network topologies. It’s an open platform where one can run their application on top of the Contiki OS or the RIOT RTOSs.
The Zoul is the smallest module solution that can be used to create low-power connectivity for local networks, up to 300 times less power consuming than regular WiFi boards. However, acknowledging its mesh topology, Zoul keeps a good trade-off between the energy and the range of the communications to cover large areas.
While there are multiple options in the market to create an Internet connected device, Zolertia is the only company that has developed modules using the 6LoWPAN stack, a TCP/UDP and IP based module to create true connected devices, where every object has an IP address and is an entity in Internet. Gratified by the service, one of the clients, Hassan Razi (Product Manager at RIVA Lighting) quoted, “With the Zoul module and Zolertia we went from the idea to the market in less than 9 months, including certifications. For 6LoWPAN technology there is no other solution that can plug’n’play”.
Apart from the patent product, the company also develops other essential tools like hardware and software. These tools simplify the prototyping, the proof of concept, the pilot stages of a development, and converting the creation of a prototype. The company also invests its know-how in its Customer’s Support department. This department focuses on documenting all the information and the examples and provide consultancy to customers that want to integrate the Zoul in their products.
Future Roadmap
As IoT is set to bring a revolution in the embedded industry, embedded solutions is the only solution to connect devices smartly. Zolertia, one of the pioneers of this upcoming revolution is helping businesses in bringing agility. The future road of Zolertia is very distinctive. The team has been successful at proving the importance and use of its technology. While there are many successful demonstrations of Zolertia’s technology, the company, yet needs to advertise its technology in the market. Though, it has been already been proved that Zolertia has a cutting-edge technology, the company plans to focuses to integrate its technology in more complex and actual products.
Source :-The 10 Most Innovative Embedded System Solution Providers 2018