Alcatel-Lucent acquires Mformation for IoT
Alcatel-Lucent has announced the acquisition of Mformation, a provider of mobile and "˜Internet of Things' security and device management solutions for mobile operators, service providers and enterprises. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Mformation, headquartered in Woodbridge, NJ, will be incorporated into Alcatel-Lucent's IP Platforms organization, providing service providers and enterprises with a secure, scalable, application-independent IoT security and control platform for use across multiple industries including automotive, healthcare, utilities, manufacturing and the digital home.
Additionally, Mformation's software products will extend and enhance the capabilities of Alcatel-Lucent's Motive Customer Experience Management (CEM) solution to provide service providers with an end-to-end, integrated and cost-efficient device management solution across home, mobile and enterprise networks. These end-to-end capabilities can address the increasing importance of the effective management and security for the 70 billion devices expected to connect to the Internet by 2020, and will simplify the management of converged networks expected to grow exponentially with the implementation of 5G.
Security concerns are on the rise as networks become increasingly virtualized, wireless devices become mainstay components of complex machines pervasive in every aspect of life, and unmanned connected devices begin to outnumber the world's population tenfold. In the past six months alone more than 50 million IoT devices have been hacked or recalled. The combination of Alcatel-Lucent's Motive portfolio and Mformation together will allow network operators to manage any endpoint (or gateway), establishing an end-to-end IoT "chain of trust" built on industry best practices for authentication and data and network security.
Bhaskar Gorti, President of Alcatel-Lucent's IP Platforms business said: "As connected devices become an ever increasing part of our social and economic fabric, we need to ensure that these devices, and the networks they navigate, are secure, reliable and efficient. Mformation's cloud-enabled IoT platform will enable our customers to rapidly deploy IoT services that can be trusted and managed efficiently."
Dr. Rakesh Kushwaha, Founder and Chief Technology Officer of Mformation said: "Our portfolio and our customer base are highly complementary to Alcatel-Lucent's Internet of Things aspirations. We look forward to leveraging our mobile and IoT security capabilities to enable customers to fully exploit the benefits of a connected world."
