Information Technology CEO Huang: Smart Hardware is Data services

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The industry is still at an early stage, and the data collected by these smart hardware products, whether in reliability or scale, still have a distance to offer a massive landing service. The most critical problem now is the popularity of smart hardware, which is also the direction of the current smart cloud, not only the existing product intelligence, but also the hatching of more innovative smart products.

Samsung proposed smart Home,lg have home Chat, Haier Force push u+, Google to 3.2 billion U.S. dollars to buy nest, millet and beauty is the link between the capital to achieve a marriage ... In the name of smart home, the Giants are betting.

At the same time, the creators as a fashionable label, gradually sinks the person gathers potential. They rely on open source, electric business, public chip and other new models, so that one after another intelligent hardware born.

In this different power intertwined in the tide of things, as a start-up company's Jie-sheng Information Technology Co., Ltd. chose to do the platform, its introduction of the smart cloud positioning for intelligent hardware to provide background support for the cloud service platform.

January 21, Jie Sheng Information Technology Co., Ltd. CEO Huang in an interview with the 21st century Economic report, said the three core elements of the Internet of things are sensors, braking devices and networking capabilities, and behind this there is a long industrial chain, with hardware-level chips, modular plants, control boards and various devices, and wired online sales channels, a variety of internet access, etc., "whether the Giants or creators, they are in the internet of things linked to the cost of their own set up a high, witty cloud business model is to help reduce the cost of matchmaking."

Huang also said that the early stage of the Internet of things, a variety of manufacturers are bound to own a set, the standard ever-changing, "unity is not going to adapt to it, smart cloud positioning is to become a translation between different standards."

At present, the Smart Cloud project won the millions of dollar a-round financing from the Jingwei venture capital. Before coming to Guangzhou to set up the wit cloud, Huang has been involved in creating a cloud services company mimeo in the United States. At the moment, the cloud services company, which offers fast-print business, has an annual revenue of hundreds of millions of dollars.

The lubricant of intelligent hardware

"21st century": I see you have a slogan (slogan): Cloud services for smart hardware only. Can you explain the business model behind this statement?

Huang: Before making the smart cloud, our team is doing apple around, since 2007, the company has made more than 100 apps for the surrounding Apple, which involves a lot of products and fields, such as tire pressure detection, smart wine cabinets, intelligent air-conditioning, sockets, pedometer, weight scales, sockets, hand rings, golf swing exercises, Pay back folder, security and so on. The business model was outsourcing.

2013 started doing cloud things because there was a lot of data produced. From the factory level, they want to interact with consumers, but also need a cloud service platform.

Our starting point is to help these companies build their own cloud. At present, customers are mainly divided into two categories: one is the traditional home appliances enterprises, they are characterized by ready-made products that need to be intelligent, their problem is the lack of internet thinking, the other is the creators, they have no baggage, creativity, but relatively speaking team, resources, funds, products and other aspects of the limited strength.

The original industrial chain is not our, or chips, components, manufacturing enterprises these hard role, or "soft" internet. Or, they are two industries, one is information industry, one is manufacturing, and two industries are fragmented. But the internet of things, or smart hardware, requires the ability of soft and hard to cross the boundary, our company is hoping to pull them together.

We position ourselves as the middleware of the internet of things. The basic ternary elements of the internet of things are sensors, braking devices and networking capabilities. These three elements have different suppliers, and their permutations and combinations can produce a large number of products, if they have to set up their own, the cost is very high, we put a variety of hardware and services together, the cost of everyone down.

"21st Century": Start-up companies to do the platform, will not be more difficult?

Huang: Now the Internet of Things is still in the early days, the standard is ever-changing, unified into a standard is not realistic, large manufacturers or Internet service providers have pushed their own standards of power. No one disagrees. Then, can not be unified to adapt to it, wit cloud is to do a variety of different standards between the translation, learning the communication between different hardware, different internet companies of the agreement, do a lot of transfer module, is equal to a universal plug.

Middleware advantage is compatible and docking, I do not do hardware, nor do Internet access, not with the two ends of the competition. At present, the two sides of the big giant, also can not put all the chain to finish, there is the need for docking.

On the contrary, I think the cooperation between giants is difficult. The larger the company, the more enemies, such as bat or table, business overlap More and more, will each establish their own standards, difficult to unify, also difficult to exchange. The cooperation between the Giants will certainly be there, but relatively close to each other. Our friends will be a lot of people who will understand us as a lubricant or catalyst for smart hardware.

21st Century: What are the specific products you offer to home appliances or customers?

Huang: Our service is to provide a platform, so that their products from isolated equipment into the network, and then provide later services, on the one hand to the consumer value-added, on the other hand also to the manufacturers to add value. Since these data are generated, there will be more ways to cash in.

We do a development platform, providing a set of tools, that is, software packages that partners can use to define products and help them make their products. Then, we will provide data support in the cloud, to activate the data to add value. Therefore, we are a development platform, but also an operating platform.

In terms of data appreciation, the earliest value may be to help them to serve consumers, such as remote control, equipment and user behavior data for automatic statistics, push through the cloud to carry out hardware firmware upgrades. In the case of everything connected, every hardware is a service.

Attribution and transformation of data

"21st century": How do you understand the ownership of these data?

Huang: In the context of smart hardware, it's true that data can be uploaded almost anytime. The principle I talk to my team and partners is: first of all, all data is for the consumer, just like you buy an Apple cell phone, which produces data that belongs to you. Second, the manufacturers as service providers, the products sold to consumers after the hands, there is access to data, upload data is to provide consumers with better services. If the consumer does not give the manufacturer this kind of gain right, also can, that is to buy the product after not networking, or when an independent product use. Of course, this loses the meaning of smart hardware.

Therefore, the manufacturers to provide services to consumers, can obtain data. In fact, this is a kind of trust, but also a contractual relationship, such as manufacturers to obtain such data, can not be in the case of consumers without knowledge to disclose to third parties.

Smart Cloud as a platform is to represent vendors to serve consumers, because the server is our operation. If consumers do not want to, in theory we and manufacturers can not get the data.

Of course, if you don't have the spirit of the contract, the consumer will distrust you, and the data you get may become a leaked channel, such as selling directly to an insurance company.

However, this can be a double win. Consumer data, as a group, can be optimized commercially. An intelligent water purifier, for example, can be used to investigate water quality in a particular region. This does not violate the user's privacy and does not violate the contract with the consumer. This information about the water quality of a particular region can then be further commercialized, such as working with a waterworks or providing value to a related health company.

The key to the moment is popularization.

"21st century": the obvious aspect of your profit model is to provide a cloud platform service fee to vendors. On the other hand, it should also include two development of the value of your ever-accumulating data warehouse. What are the current application cases?

Huang: We are intelligent hardware connected to the Internet on the first stop, we provide vendors with a lot of services are basic, common. Of course, to think about it, but also to explore a lot of personalized services. For example, energy management, currently can reach the manufacturers including AO Smith, such as water heater manufacturers, and air-conditioning manufacturers, these are large energy consumers, we not only know the power of equipment, but also to manage. So are we able to work with power outlets to help them improve their product value?

So, the wit cloud is not sell the data, the data is a pile of 1 and 0, other people buys to go also meaningless. The nature of the Internet of Things is based on intelligent hardware data to provide new services, the so-called wool out of pigs. As a service platform, we can set up different service providers, just like the app store in smartphones.

For example, Google buys the nest, it has a thermostat product, sells 129 dollars, the material is very sufficient, the hardware itself is difficult to make money. Part of its profit-making model is to get subsidies from the grid by intelligently alerting consumers to the temperature set by Cho High air conditioners at peak electricity levels to avoid the power grid from being paralyzed.

A smart rice cooker, for example, may sell at a low price, close to cost or lower than the cost price, but can be sold to provide food supplies, such as organic rice, vegetables, and services to achieve benefits. This is when manufacturing becomes a service industry.

After digitization, the possibility of the service appears, the consumer can pay for the service. The value of millet is not based on the millet handsets it sells, but on the services behind it.

The more service providers we have on our platform, the more we form a service-providing market in which we can assume the role of matchmaking.

21st Century: What are some of the areas that wool is supposed to be in pigs?

Huang: Another example is health management. Now our health care is passive, there is a problem to go to the hospital. It can monitor our heart rate, blood pressure, blood sugar and so on, and can solve the problem ahead of time.

Can imagine a lot of areas. It should be noted, however, that the industry is still in its early stages, and that the data collected by these smart hardware products are still far from being available on a large scale, both in reliability and size.

Now everyone is doing experiments, do closed loop, all links are still working, it takes time. When the quantity is not big enough, the person who provides the service also cannot make the money. The most critical problem now is the popularity of smart hardware, which is also the direction of the current smart cloud, not only the existing product intelligence, but also the hatching of more innovative smart products.

It is for this reason that we have launched a Development board for intelligent hardware developers Gokit, which integrates motors, WiFi modules, infrared light, temperature and humidity sensors, so that developers quickly realize the prototype development of smart hardware.

Only more and more intelligent products, more and more dimensions, the possibility of providing services more and more.