Microsoft, Qualcomm And Intel Start Playing Nice On 'Internet Of Things' Standards

I cover hardware and chipmakers.

The Nest Learning Thermostat (Photo credit: AP Photo/Eric Risberg)

Chip making rivals Intel and Qualcomm want to finally play nice in the “Internet of Things.”

For the past few years, the two companies have led separate and competing standards groups around the growing billions (or is trillions?) of connected light bulbs, thermostats, cars and more – the Open Interconnect Consortium (OIC) on Intel’s side and AllSeen Alliance on Qualcomm’s. Now the two will begin collaborating with each other under OIC’s new name: the Open Connectivity Foundation (OCF).

The new entity will replace all of OIC’s activities. Existing OIC members will move over to this new organization. Qualcomm will stay involved in AllSeen and any device running the AllSeen standard will also work on the new OFC standard, a spokeswoman said.

“We believe that fragmentation is the enemy of IoT. That’s why we are working with these likeminded companies to invest in the future of IoT,” said Michael Wallace, a senior vice president and general manager of emerging businesses at Qualcomm, in a blog post scheduled to be published on Friday morning.

Another interesting entrant here is Microsoft MSFT -0.43%. Although we haven’t seen all that much from Microsoft in the Internet of Things yet, the Redmond, Washington-based software giant has introduced a version of its latest operating system, Windows 10, specifically for low-powered devices, and its Azure cloud services now has a tailored service for connected devices.

“We have helped lead the formation of the OCF because we believe deeply in its vision and the potential an open standard can deliver,”said Terry Myerson, executive vice president of Windows and devices group at Microsoft, in a blog post. “Despite the opportunity and promise of IoT to connect devices in the home or in businesses, competition between various open standards and closed company protocols have slowed adoption and innovation.”

Myerson goes on to explain in the blog post that all devices running Windows 10 will support the OCF standard.

These standards bodies bring together many industry players to define communication protocols, software, hardware, and licensing agreements. The hope of this standards body is that every device connected to the internet will be able to seamlessly talk to each other — no matter the chip, operating system or maker of the device.

In some ways, the Internet of Things still feels like empty tech jargon. It’s hard to lump all these different, disparate things together and talk about them in a meaningful way. Maybe once all these things really begin talking to each other, the term will be more appropriate. But for now, there is still a mess in the number of standards out there in the Internet of Things. People have frequently compared it to the VHS-Betamax videotape format war of the 1980s. Ultimately, there really needs to be one standard to win out. Getting rivals like Qualcomm and Intel working together is a good start.

Other members listed as leading the OCF are ARRIS, CableLabs, Cisco, Electrolux, GE Digital and Samsung.