Having taken up the torch for cognitive computing, IBM Corp. is one tech behemoth investing heavily in the emerging Internet of Things market. Recognizing innovation and thought leaders, IBM’s Champion program recognizes IT professionals, business leaders, developers and educators who influence and mentor others. The ultimate goal is to help these innovators make the best use of IBM software, solutions and services, including Internet of Things solutions.

This week we heard from one IBM Champion, John McDonald. The CEO at CloudOne joined Dave Vellante (@dvellante), co-host of theCUBE*, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, during the IBM World of Watson event in Las Vegas, NV. They discussed how CloudOne engages with IBM as its partner, and how its architected for data-driven IoT business.

CloudOne helps bring ITO platforms to large corporations. “It starts with embedded software development, so think car radios or medical devices — things where you embed software in the product,” McDonald said. “We also help them collect data from the product, which is really important when you’re trying to get your ‘thing’ into the IoT.”

He went on to explain that CloudOne provides managed services, cloud systems integration and ITO systems integration, defying many of the usual categories of business partner.

They discussed how McDonald was originally an IBM employee, until leaving to become CEO of CloudOne in 2010. Vellante asked about how the IoT initiative began.

“We began with embedded software, the development tools, and putting the software in the product and collecting data from products,” McDonald said. “We started doing that a long time before they started calling it the IoT. After we were doing that for four or so years, it became very important for companies to talk about how to make your ‘thing’ become part of the IoT.”

Vellante asked if the IBM partnership really accelerated his company’s growth.

“You bet … as a result of building our solutions on these great cloud services that we get from IBM, and then bringing together edge technologies, ideation and developers all on cloud services that are well-managed as a result,” said McDonald.

Gathering and analyzing data

Vellante asked which components of IBM’s portfolio the company actually integrates, and if it is solely IBM?

McDonald said that it always begins with something in the IBM portfolio, primarily in the development space, including embedding software into the product or the services around the product. “That’s called DevOps,” he said.

The other part of it is gathering data from the product and trying to make sense of what it means — the analytics. “So we have two parts of our business … those are embodied in a set of cloud services and technologies in the IBM portfolio, in the Watson IoT space, and in the Watson analytics space that we then weave together for those cloud services,” he explained.

McDonald added that there are sometimes other technologies that weave their way in. “IBM doesn’t make many sensors, and so you have all of these things in the marketplace that can we use and leverage in these solutions … that help to round out and make a full solution. But it’s IBM-focused,” he stated.

Regarding IBM analytics, McDonald said, “It’s primarily streams processing, being able to take data in in real-time. We use both traditional analytics environments — ­BigInsights and DB2 and other Hadoop-based models — as well as new things, like cloud and delivered through Bluemix.”

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of IBM World of Watson 2016.

*Disclosure: IBM and other companies sponsor some IBM World of Watson segments on SiliconANGLE Media’s theCUBE. Neither IBM nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.

Photo by SiliconANGLE