Newark, N.J. — Panasonic announced it will provide royalty-free access to “software, patents and experience” from its Internet of Things (IoT) product ecosystem.
Device-to-Cloud software technology — including that used in home-monitoring systems, solar energy and retail applications — will be available for royalty-free use.
Noted Todd Rytting, Panasonic North America chief technology officer, in a statement: “Open sourcing a proprietary technology invites the open-source community to evaluate, work on and ultimately improve the software. In a market full of incompatible, proprietary offerings, this initiative brings a powerful tool to developers and equipment makers to help them create what the market wants in the IoT: interoperable and flexible services and applications leveraging data from connected devices and most importantly value to the customer.”
Panasonic also said it’s increasing its intellectual property contributions to the AllSeen Alliance, a nonprofit open-source consortium dedicated to advancing IoT. It will contribute software code and experience to the alliance’s gateway working group.
Panasonic serves on the board of the AllSeen Alliance. Other member companies include Sony, Sharp, LG, Haier, Microsoft, Cisco, Harman and Qualcomm.
It will also contribute its device-to-Cloud software open-source code to the OpenDOF Project, a non-profit organization Panasonic founded earlier this month.
