- Software AG’s Vice President of Innovation & Architecture said in an interview that the IOTA protocol is predestined to become the standard for the industrial Internet of Things (IoT).
- Software AG is planning a long-term cooperation with IOTA and is currently working with its customers to find use cases for IOTA.
In a German interview with EinfachIOTA, Christoph Strnadl, vice president of Innovation & Architecture at Software, spoke about Software AG’s vision for the use of IOTA. Software AG is a founding member of the Tangle EE Working Group and is the second largest software company in the German-speaking region that also operates globally.
At the same time, Software AG is also one of the most committed companies in its cooperation with the IOTA Foundation. Already at the end of November 2019, the company stated that it had worked intensively with the IOTA Foundation throughout 2019. In the one-hour interview, Strnadl spoke about how the two organizations came together, how the cooperation has been working and Software AG’s long-term goals with IOTA.
Strnadl began by explaining that in 2016 and 2017, different Distributed Ledger technologies were examined, with 4 or 5 candidates to choose from. One of them was IOTA, for three reasons as Strnadl noted. One was the free-of-charge transactions, as transaction fees are a “no-go” in the field of machine economics.
Furthermore, the scalability and conceptual maturity of Coordicide spoke in favor of IOTA. And third, the governance mechanisms were decisive, as Strnadl explains. For a company like Software AG, it is not acceptable that there can simply be a change without the company’s consent that has an impact on the customers’ software.
Software AG plans long-term cooperation with IOTA
Strnadl also explained that Software AG has moved beyond the proof of concept phase with IOTA. Software AG’s current efforts are focused on integration software and co-innovation. However, Strnadl also emphasized that the company is currently working with its customers to find use cases that cannot be implemented more cheaply, easily and with less risk using non-blockchain solutions (freely translated):
They all say, what’s the point? Where is the benefit over others? And there are a few elements; and IOTA is there for the devices, for the identity, for the many players in the supply chain, – […] I am convinced, however, together with the customers we still have to determine that – where you possibly have a technology with which you can solve problems that you can’ t be solved so quickly otherwise.
As Strnadl further explained, sensors in a factory could be such a use case, since legacy systems cannot cope with the sheer number of them worldwide. Strnadl also mentioned the supply chain as a possible use case, but pointed out that there are global standards to consider. The expectations of the crypto-community are in a way wrong, if it is expected that a blockchain/ DLT is invented and then will be used immediately. According to him, a lot of background work is necessary in this area. Here the Tangle EE Working Group plays an important role in establishing the standard.
As far as the perspective of cooperation is concerned, Strnadl clearly stated that it is a long-term cooperation over many years, independent of short-term events:
In one year, it will certainly be seen that the Coordicide works, and where weaknesses still exist. We are committed to IOTA for the log run, in other words strategically. If a project doesn’t come up because of corona or the Trinity Hack […] if it is postponed for half a year, so what. […]
But after five years, there should already be use cases, the protocol should then be reasonably stable, and standardization should also become apparent.
When asked whether IOTA has a chance to become the standard for IoT, also in view of the fact that these are highly political decisions, Strnadl said:
There is a very good chance, because IOTA is sailing a little under the radar by this focus on IoT. The Americans are only interested in IoT in the consumer sector. […] But there are so many more sensors in the industrial IoT world and there you can sail under the radar. […] And IOTA as an open standard, with open source implementations, it is predestined to be the only standard for this application, if you are quick enough.
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