The Outsourcing Solution for Complex Product Software Development

If connecting a smart device can create substantial customer value and you do not do it, your competitors will.  So the questions in many cases is not when should I do it but how should I do it?  Answering this question is highly dependent on a myriad of factors.  Some of the more important are: the value of the enabled function(s), operation and communications characteristics and with whom (or what) the product will connect.  It is a given that we are moving device specific data using a reliable but unsecured transport, TCP/IP.  But all that TCP/IP provides is the transport of “stuff”, any stuff.  What we need above this is a means for our software to access TCP/IP and the structuring of how and what is being transported. The possible solution set is not small and ranges from highly proprietary to highly standardized.  T. H. E. Solution LLC recently completed a detailed study that encompassed everything from the business case to detailed reference implementations of key technical options.  The following links cover the publicly released material from this study:

  1. Business case summary
  2. Technical options summary
  3. Reference implementations:
    1. Proprietary top level protocol with offloading
    2. Embedded web service client
    3. Embedded basic web service server
    4. Embedded standards compliant web service server
    5. Secure embedded standards compliant web service server