What with everyone agreeing that the Internet of Things (IoT) is likely to explode in the coming years, Nokia Oyj is betting on its networking expertise to help it grab a slice of the action. To that end, the Finnish ex-phone maker has rolled out a new, horizontal IoT platform called IMPACT (Intelligent Management Platform for All Connected Things) that wants to be at the heart of every connected device.

Nokia claims that IMPACT can handle every aspect of machine-to-machine (M2M) communications, including data collection, data contextualization, data analytics, device management, event processing, end-to-end security and application enablement, for any device, on any protocol, across every application.

IMPACT is both modular in design and scalable, because it comes with the capability to add new models that arise in future, and it’s a cloud-based platform, which means customers can add server capacity as needed as the number of supported devices grows. Additionally, IMPACT comes integrated with Nokia’s Motive Connected Device Platform (CDP), which can support over 80,000 devices and sensors built by more than 100 manufacturers.

Nokia says this ability to scale and add new models will become fundamental in future years, with a broad range of analysts forecasting significant growth. Analyst’s estimates vary, but Cisco Systems Inc. has famously predicted the number of connected devices in the world could top 50 billion by 2020. Those billions of devices will generate mountains of data, all of which needs to be collected, stored and analyzed, Nokia said.

“Our new IMPACT platform with Motive CDP is particularly strong in device management, security and analyticsm,” said Bhaskar Gorti, president of the Applications and Analytics Business Group at Nokia, in a statement. “These matter because as we work to collect and derive meaning from IoT data, it becomes more valuable to everyone involved—and more crucial to protect.”

Nokia has also taken steps to secure IMPACT with network, cloud and end-point security capabilities. The platform also implements the latest Lightweight M2M security model for IoT device management, and is bolstered by Nokia’s own proprietary security technologies.

In an interview with ZDNet, Nokia’s IoT product strategy director Frank Ploumen said the platform was targeted at large enterprises, service providers and government agencies that need to integrate multiple IoT products across different business siloes. He talked about “Smart City” initiatives as an example of how the platform could be deployed. The main problem with such initiatives is that they’re usually focused on solutions for specific agencies like law enforcement or traffic management, but this kind of siloed approach can slow down other smart city projects, Ploumen said. He pointed to San Francisco’s smart parking meter experiment as an example of how a more holistic approach can provide additional benefits, as those meters have not just influenced parking habits but also created more efficiencies for the city’s public buses.

Nokia’s launch of IMPACT comes following a rocky transitional period for the Finnish company since acquiring Alcatel-Lucent S.A. in April of last year. In its first quarter earnings results, the company reported a loss of €613 million ($6.86 million), before later announcing plans to layoff between 10,000 and 15,000 workers. However, by acquiring Alcatel-Lucent and slimming down its workforce, Nokia is now able to focus on more promising revenue streams. Last April, for example, Nokia said it was planning to acquire Withings SA, which makes wearable health-monitoring devices, adding to its portfolio in the fast-growing IoT segment.

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