Software AG has signed a partnership with Swinburne University of Technology under which it will provide its Cumulocity IoT platform for research and education purposes.
Software AG said the platform would be used by Swinburne University’s IoT research customers on projects in Australia mainly in agriculture, industrial IoT and manufacturing.
Swinburne will also incorporate Software AG’s IoT and analytics platform suite as part of its educational IoT and engineering programs.
The collaboration will also see Swinburne and Software AG work jointly on new research programs funded by Swinburne‘s research customers and the Federal Government.
According to Dimitrios Georgakopoulos, director of Swinburne’s Internet of Things Lab, the university sought a technology partner that could support its educational and research programs in its Manufacturing Futures Research Institute and IoT Lab and expand its industry research programs in agricultural IoT and supply chain optimisation.
“We looked as several technology providers and Software AG ticked all the boxes for us,” he said.
“The company has a great track record in the industry in addition having an IoT solution that is first class in its field and extremely suited for the industries we’re looking at targeting.”
Swinburne’s industry partnerships
The partnership with Software AG is the latest of several IoT relationships with industry entered into by Swinburne in recent years.
In August 2017 Swinburne received a $135 million industrial software grant from engineering giant Siemens to digitalise its Factory of the Future, creating what it claimed would be Australia’s first fully immersed Industry 4.0 facility. And in August 2018, Siemens announced it would install its MindSphere industrial IoT operating system at the university’s Hawthorn campus.
In November that year DXC Technology opened a Digital Transformation Centre at Swinburne University of Technology. In May 2019 Swinburne University and Amazon Web Services announced a collaboration to help understand, and anticipate, the societal impacts of Industry 4.0, aka Society 4.0.
Software AG adds IoT partners
Software AG’s head of IoT ANZ, Tony Drewitt, said the company was signing on more industry vertical IoT partners in the region. “We recently announced a new global partnership with Tech Mahindra, which we are now active with in Australia. We have also signed on Nucleus 3 who are experts in IoT and analytics for the energy and utility sectors,” he said.
“Nucleus 3 is also the first certified Software AG TrendMiner solution partner in Australia supporting our self-service analytics products.”
