Embarcadero Technologies recently announced partnership with Radius Networks to accelerate development of connected Internet of Things (IoT) solutions. As part of the development, Embarcadero’s Appmethod will provide support to Radius Networks RadBeacon Proximity beacon technologies. This will help developers to quickly build new and innovative proximity-enabled solutions using a single-source native app development platform.
In an exclusive interview, John (JT) Thomas, Senior Director, Application Development Products, Embarcadero Technologies shared more information about the partnership with Radius Networks
Learnxpress: Can you explain the real meaning of Internet of Things?
The Internet of Things (IoT) can have a different meaning depending on who you ask, but I will focus on the meaning of IoT to a software developer. To a developer, IoT means access to programmable, physical objects that can be connected with other software to call APIs, which then provide data, set off an action, or take input into an app solution.
To the programmer, IoT is a way to integrate useful gadgets, devices, wearables, sensors, beacons into an app solution to deliver novel and innovative user experiences that dramatically affect how those applications interact with the world around them.
Learnxpress: How does Internet of Things improve the future technology?
In many ways, IoT makes the world around us programmable, which means software developers can create new solutions that improve the future of technology. For example, many tasks for today can be automated in the future, saving time and/or money, or resulting in less mistakes. This also means, the world around us can become more interactive, whether it is in a home, a car, a business, a manufacturing floor, a retail floor, and so on. IoT will have a profound effect on the future of technology which is largely driven by software.
Learnxpress: How does the partnership with Radius help your customers?
The partnership with Radius helps our customers because it makes their Beacons easy to integrate into a RAD Studio, Delphi, C++Builder, or Appmethod application through our highly productive, multi-device component framework. Proximity beacons will become a critical component of almost any IoT solution because it makes the app aware of the location of parts of the app users within the physical environment.
Learnxpress: When can we expect the first integrated product after the collaboration?
In early spring, we expect to release easy to use components in our framework to integrate Radius beacon sensors.
Learnxpress: Can you share with us the real benefit of integrating Embarcadero’s Appmethod with RadBeacon Proximity beacon?
The real benefit is Embarcadero customers will be able to easily add proximity beacons into their applications to build new solutions for their customers, business, and enterprises.
Learnxpress: Can you pinpoint a few real world scenarios where RadBeacon Proximity beacon can be implemented?
Sure, a couple of obvious examples would be in the retail, healthcare, and manufacturing industries. In retail, for example, apps can be aware of the location of a customer within their store by the locations of those beacons, as they move through the retail space, to better understand a customer’s buying behavior and deliver a more tailored shopping experience.
In healthcare, beacons can be used to automate the check-in, nurse’s vital sign station, and other activities within the facility by knowing where the patient is, due to the location of beacons. In manufacturing, beacons can be used to better automate the manufacturing process or improve safety, again by utilizing the location of the app with relations to deployed beacons.
Learnxpress: Can you share the future roadmap of Embarcadero’s Appmethod?
Appmethod will continue to integrate increasingly more IoT gadgets, devices, and wearables, to open up the world of IoT to our developers. Additionally, Appmethod will continue to deliver an end-to-end solution from clients, to middleware, to cloud, to enterprise backend so our developers can use modern app architectures to deliver IoT solutions that make sense for business.
