On Wednesday, Samsung announced the commercial availability of its ARTIK Cloud platform for the internet of things (IoT) and connected devices. Samsung billed the ARTIK Cloud as an “open data exchange platform designed to connect devices and applications.”

Samsung got its start with the ARTIK ecosystem a few years ago when it released modules designed for IoT development. The introduction of a cloud platform for IoT signals that the company is serious about its investment in IoT and sees it as a potential future revenue supplement.

SEE: The Power of IoT and Big Data (Tech Pro Research)

ARTIK Cloud offers open APIs and tools to help users act on the data that is produced by a connected device, or stored in a cloud platform. The hope is that the ARTIK Cloud, along with the rest of the ARTIK modules, will make it easier and faster to bring IoT applications to market.

“Our vision for the ARTIK platform is an end-to-end experience that reduces the obstacles, challenges, and time-to-market for IoT solutions,” Young Sohn, president and chief strategy officer of Samsung Electronics said in a press release.

The ARTIK platform has been in development for three years, and Samsung hopes it will bring the kind of unification that is needed to connect different devices and services on a single platform. IoT data is often siloed and it is often difficult to get disparate protocols to work together. On top of that, connecting back to legacy systems brings another layer of complexity to the mix.

BK Yoon, president and CEO of Samsung Electronics, said that the need for interoperability among IoT is “paramount,” and it is the key to creating better experiences for users.

The key features for device and data support include device manifests that use a universal language to help with onboarding a new device, cloud connectors, and multi-protocol connectors that support REST/HTTP, Websockets, MQTT, and CoAP.

Any type of data can be collected from any device or cloud, and ARTIK offers data indexing, analytics, and visualization as well.

In terms of security, ARTIK brings secure device registration, privacy management for users, and authentication and authorization tools to build out permissions.

In addition to the open APIs, developers can access a rules engine and developer portal, as well as platform SDKs for Objective C, Java, JavaScript, Swift, PHP, Python, Ruby, Scala, and C#; and Tizen 3.0 when it is released.

SEE: Why the Internet of Things needs open source (TechRepublic)

The ARTIK Cloud platform is launching with partners such as SmartThings, Legrand, and Digibe Software.

Samsung’s ARTIK Cloud follows a tiered pricing platform, priced per device per month. The company also offers customized enterprise pricing.

Samsung isn’t alone in the IoT platform space, though, as they will be competing with other tech giants such as Intel and AWS. However, as the enterprise continues to get serious about IoT development, the company that provides the most useful platform could stand to win big.

Interested developers can learn more about ARTIK Cloud here.

The 3 big takeaways for TechRepublic readers

  1. Samsung recently announced its open ARTIK Cloud platform for IoT development that offers a variety of tools to make it easier to bring IoT applications to market.
  2. ARTIK Cloud offers a host of API tools, security features, and data analysis tools to assist developer in getting their application onto the platform.
  3. In addition to ARTIK Cloud, Samsung has a host of other ARTIK products, and we will likely see an increased push in IoT from Samsung in the future.