UPDATED 21:47 EDT / MAY 07 2018

CLOUD

Nokia buys SpaceTime Insight to strengthen its industrial IoT business

Finnish technology firm Nokia Oyj is doubling down on the “internet of things” as it continues to wash its hands of its consumer-focused businesses.

The company today announced it has completed the acquisition of 10-year-old IoT company SpaceTime Insight Inc. for an undisclosed fee. The move comes less than a week after Nokia sold its Nokia Health division, which was formerly known as Withings.

SpaceTime Insight is an industrial IoT platform provider whose software is used to protect devices and assets across the network. The software is used by a companies in a diverse range of industries, including the energy, manufacturing and transportation sectors. The software also provides monitoring capabilities to predict the probability of asset failure; thus, companies can mitigate these problems before they happen in order to keep downtime to a minimum.

Nokia’s move to buy SpaceTime Insight is in line with a strategic pivot that has taken place over the last couple of years, moving away from consumer products to more business-focused operations such as 5G infrastructure and the IoT.

The acquisition also servers as “another proof point that IoT is the new ‘cloud,’ and an innovation that enterprises cannot ignore and will not stay out of,” said Holger Mueller, principal analyst and vice president at Constellation Research Inc. “And if you come late, like Nokia, an acquisition is the best way in.”

SpaceTime Insight boasts some pretty heavyweight customers that will now fall into Nokia’s clutches, including FedEx Corp., the rail operator Union Pacific and the utilities firms Entergy Corp., NextEra Energy Inc. and Singapore Power Group.

Nokia said it’s not expecting the SpaceTime Insight acquisition to affect its IoT product roadmap for quite some time, most likely within the next 18 to 24 months.

“Adding SpaceTime to Nokia Software is a strong step forward in our strategy and will help us deliver a new class of intelligent solutions to meet the demands of an increasingly interconnected world,” Nokia Software President Bhaskar Gorti said in a statement. “Together, we can empower customers to realize the full value of their people, processes and assets and enable them to deliver rich, world-class digital experiences.”

Nokia said the acquisition has already closed. As part of the deal, SpaceTime Insight Chief Executive Officer Rob Schilling will join Nokia Software’s IoT product unit.

Image: Learntek/Flickr

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