PTC today completed its acquisition of Axeda Corporation, a developer of solutions that securely connect machines and sensors to the cloud. Axeda's technology innovation, extensive customer base, and powerful partnerships directly complement the PTCThingWorx business, and will accelerate PTC's ability to deliver best-in-class solutions to its customers in the Internet of Things era.
An innovator in the IoT technology market, Axeda serves more than 150 customers, processing hundreds of millions of machine messages daily across multiple industry sectors. The company has a broad partner ecosystem that includes leading mobile network operators, device makers, systems integrators, and business systems/analytics providers - and its technology leadership has led to several strategic OEM agreements with leading IoT technology and solution providers.
Axeda offers IoT technology built on a modern architecture purpose-built for collecting and organizing the world's machine and sensor data. Axeda software enables companies to establish secure connectivity, and remotely monitor, manage, and service a wide range of connected machines, sensors, and devices. Examples of capabilities include:
- The Axeda Machine Cloud Service consists of machine-to-machine (M2M) and IoT connectivity services, software agents, and toolkits that allow companies to securely connect their products to the cloud using virtually any communication channel (cellular networks, the Internet, WiFi, or satellite).
- The Axeda Connected Content Application enables efficient, secure, reliable, and cost-effective mass distribution of content to connected products and automates the remote installation of software updates and security patches.
- The Axeda Connected Service Application, a complement to PTC's portfolio of SLM solutions, provides field service and technical support personnel with a Web-based graphical interface and a comprehensive set of tools to remotely identify, diagnose, and repair problems with devices connected to the Axeda Platform.
- Axeda's end-to-end security strategy covers all levels of the IoT technology stack, including network, application, user, and data security. Axeda has attained ISO 27001:2005 certification, supporting the company's focus on delivering the highest levels of security, performance, and availability.
"This acquisition signals PTC's commitment to becoming one of the premier technology players in the IoT market, i.e., a smart, connected world," said Predrag (PJ) Jakovljevic, principal analyst, Technology Evaluation Centers (TEC). "PTC intends to leverage the Axeda technology portfolio to complement its existing ThingWorx® rapid application development platform and its existing service lifecycle management (SLM) and product lifecycle management (PLM) solution portfolios. Axeda's strengths of IoT connectivity and device management combined with the ThingWorx IoT rapid application development tools enriches PTC's IoT technology stack."
"With Axeda, PTC gains leading technology, customers, partners, revenue, and employees with deep IoT expertise," said PTC president and CEO Jim Heppelmann. "This acquisition complements our ThingWorx business, supplements our SLM offering, enhances our portfolio of PLM and other applications, and positions us to better serve our customers in the dynamic new world of smart, connected products. We now have established one of the industry's largest Centers of Excellence focused on the Internet of Things."
