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Crestron Wins 2018 Microsoft Global IoT Partner of the Year Award

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Crestron has accepted the prestigious 2018 Microsoft Global Partner of the Year Award for Internet of Things (IoT) in a ceremony at the Microsoft Inspire event in Las Vegas.

Microsoft® recognised Crestron for providing outstanding solutions in IoT in the form of Crestron XiO Cloud, a revolutionary IoT-based provisioning and management solution built on the Microsoft Azure® platform.

Crestron XiO Cloud is revolutionising provisioning and management of Crestron’s popular open UC, room scheduling, AV, and content sharing solutions at the world’s leading companies, resulting in up to 90 percent reductions in installation time, improvements in device uptime, and optimisation of people, space, and technology. 

Powering the digital transformation
As businesses across every industry continue along their digital transformation journey, Crestron IoT enabled automation and control solutions enable facility management and IT staff to control entire environments with a push of a button or click of a mouse, integrating audio, video, digital signage, scheduling, lighting, building management systems (BMS), HVAC and security systems.

The strength of Crestron IoT-enabled devices and systems is their integration in the Crestron XiO Cloud, providing all-in-one monitoring, management and control from a single platform.

“Intelligent workplace solutions are the springboard for digital transformation- but managing the devices that enable it can be costly and complicated. Crestron XiO Cloud reduces the complexities associated with deploying, tracking, managing and evolving the ecosystem of IoT enabled devices that make communication and collaboration seamless.

Crestron is honored to be recognised by Microsoft for developing game-changing connected technologies that help propel digital transformation at Fortune 500® companies worldwide,” said Ted Colton, Vice President of Unified Communication Strategies at Crestron.

Celebrating partner achievement
The annual Microsoft Partner of the Year awards celebrate top Microsoft partners who demonstrate excellence in innovation and implementation of customer solutions based on Microsoft technology. Microsoft received more than 2,600 nominations from 115 countries for the 2018 program.

The IoT category was judged by a number of IoT stakeholders and leaders from Microsoft Common Data Service, One Commercial Partner, Windows and Azure. The judges selected the winners based on their commitment to customers, the solution’s impact on the market, and exemplary use of Microsoft technologies.

“Our ecosystem of partners is crucial to delivering transformative solutions, and this year’s winners have proven to be some of the finest among their peers,” said Gavriella Schuster, Corporate Vice President, One Commercial Partner, Microsoft Corp. “We are pleased to recognise Crestron for being selected as winner of the 2018 Microsoft IoT Partner of the Year award.”

Schneider Electric Launches Next Generation of EcoStruxure

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Schneider Electric empowers customers and partners to augment operations to reach new levels of operational efficiency, sustainability, asset performance and people productivity.

Schneider Electric empowers customers and partners to augment operations to reach new levels of operational efficiency, sustainability, asset performance and people productivity.

Schneider Electric, the global specialist in energy management and automation, today announced the launch of its next generation EcoStruxure™ architecture and platform to deliver IoT-enabled solutions at scale for building, grid, industry and data centre customers. The enhanced architecture and platform is open, scalable and interoperable, connecting the three core layers of Schneider Electric’s technology stack, from connected products, to edge control, to applications, analytics and services. This next generation EcoStruxure delivers enhanced value around safety, reliability, efficiency, sustainability, and connectivity of IoT-enabled operations.

Next Generation EcoStruxure Delivers Advanced Value
EcoStruxure enables Schneider Electric, its partners and end-user customers to develop scalable and converged IT/OT solutions that deliver innovation at every level to an organisation or enterprise. Leveraging connectivity and data to create controls and actionable business insights, with the combined power of analytics and closed-loop applications, Schneider Electric empowers customers and partners to augment operations to reach new levels of operational efficiency, sustainability, asset performance and people productivity. EcoStruxure fosters open innovation and interoperability and is developed in partnership with leading standards organisations and best-in-class technology leaders.

“EcoStruxure combines our history in pioneering in automation, energy management and deep domain expertise with data-driven metrics and analytics to help us maximise the value of the Internet of Things for our customers,” said Damien Dhellemmes, Country President, Singapore, Schneider Electric. “EcoStruxure gives our customers the platform, architecture and roadmap to quickly and easily implement IoT in an enterprise, extending the benefits of IoT beyond the device layer to create a more intelligent, efficient and secure operation.”

Delivering Innovation at Every Level of the Technology Stack
EcoStruxure builds on Schneider Electric’s long-standing product and system leadership to provide the industry’s most comprehensive portfolio of interoperable and cloud-connected and/or on-premise technologies organised around its three layers of technology innovation:

  • The first layer builds on Schneider Electric’s core competency in developing connected products with embedded intelligence, such as sensors, medium and low voltage breakers, drives and actuators.
  • The Edge Control layer gives organisations the critical capability to manage their operations on-premise as well as from the cloud depending on their needs. This includes connected control platforms with remote access, advanced automation and operator override capabilities. Local control and firewall protection is included to maximise the benefits especially for mission-critical applications.
  • Schneider Electric’s focused investment in R&D and product development in the critical areas of software, analytics and services, coupled with the integration of recent acquisitions such as Invensys, Telvent and Summit Energy forms the third layer of the stack – a portfolio of apps, analytics and services. EcoStruxure enables the most extensive breadth of vendor-agnostic apps, analytics and services on open IP protocols in order to work with any hardware, system, or control.

Delivering Advanced Platform Capabilities
EcoStruxure is designed to meet the core customer challenge of implementing IoT solutions seamlessly, cost-effectively and at scale. The redefined IoT platform bridges the IT/OT gap and connects the three core layers of Schneider Electric’s innovation technology stack to maximise value for customers.

The launch of the EcoStruxure platform provides a secure, IoT-enabled technology backbone with three core technology capabilities:

  • Embedded connectivity and intelligence that enables smart sensing, embedded computing, IP networking and edge analytics
  • A foundation for smart operations to serve as the building blocks for control, management, automaton and optimisation
  • The infrastructure for cloud-connected digital services that enables the delivery of cloud-based connected apps, analytics, services, control and monitoring

Future-proof Reference Architectures
Schneider Electric delivers these efficiency and sustainability solutions to customers through a set of core reference architectures. The architectures build on the company’s deep domain expertise and portfolio and are tested, validated and tailored for its core end markets of Buildings, Grid, Industry and Data Centers, with even more specific architectures also available for industrial plants, industrial machines, and power distribution. The architectures give customers access to documented and standardised system reference designs that can be used in the implementation of interoperable, sustainable, efficient and connected systems.

Schneider Electric also announced that it is working with established partners such as Microsoft and Intel, and new partners who the company will be working with to create or co-create customer solutions and applications. For more information on this ecosystem of partners, see the accompanying press release.

For more information on EcoStruxure, click HERE.