Opto 22, Temecula, Calif., announced a strategic partnership with IBM, North Castle, N.Y., and IBM’s Watson IoT partner ecosystem to providing developers an end-to-end toolset for rapidly developing and deploying industrial Internet of Things (IoT) applications.

This partnership enables developers to rapidly design, prototype and deploy applications to connect existing industrial assets to the IBM Watson IoT platform and share their data, capabilities and resources with other connected systems and assets.

Developers can connect, set up and manage edge processing devices like programmable automation controllers from Opto 22 and apply real-time analytics, cognitive services and blockchain technology to the data generated by these devices.

“The industrial automation and control industry is in transition right now,” says Benson Hougland, vice president of marketing and product strategy of Opto 22. “A product development strategy based on proprietary and closed technologies is outdated. The future of industrial automation and process control lies in the rising API and data economies made possible through open standards-based technologies. Our objective in partnering with IBM is to enable IIoT developers to build their applications faster using well-known and proven Internet tools and technology like Node-RED, RESTful APIs and the IBM Watson IoT Platform.”