Internet of things starter kit unveiled by ARM and IBM
Context & Ripple Effects
This starter kit is the opening move in what became a multi-year ARM–IBM pairing on the Internet of Things: by September the two had expanded it into a data-analytics partnership spanning industrial, health, car, and wearable devices. The kit's job is to give developers a pre-integrated path from ARM-based hardware to IBM's cloud, lowering the cost of prototyping connected products.
The competitive frame matters too: months later Samsung answered with its Artik chip line priced between $10 and $100, showing silicon vendors racing to own the same entry point this kit targets.
First-order effects
- IoT developers get a single reference stack — ARM silicon plus IBM's cloud tooling — instead of assembling device and analytics layers themselves, which shifts early project choices toward the two partners' ecosystems.
Second-order effects
- Samsung's Artik line competes head-on for the same starter-kit buyer, pressuring both vendors to bundle more of the stack at lower price points.
- IBM extends the same playbook to the network layer with its Watson-in-Cisco-routers deal, pushing analytics from the cloud toward the edge.
Third-order effects
- ARM builds out the device side of the stack through acquisition — first the Cordio radio portfolio promising longer battery life, then the Mistbase and NextG-Com cellular-modem buys — pointing toward IoT platforms that own chips, connectivity, and cloud rather than selling piece parts.
The trend: The IoT is consolidating around vertically integrated chip-to-cloud stacks from a few vendors, with ARM and IBM among the earliest to pair silicon with analytics.