Deutsche Telekom has launched an M2M Developer Community for machine-to-machine (M2M) communication solutions developers, via its Developer Garden platform.

The community offers developers access to tools such as APIs, programming guidelines and software development kits (SDK) to develop and sell applications for M2M – the Internet of Things – easily and quickly. For example, a smoke detector alarm can be monitored online utilizing the appropriate M2M API, and by mashing-up with Deutsche Telekom’s SMS API, can be further enhanced with SMS alarm notification. The finished M2M app can then be directly marketed and sold via Deutsche Telekom’s M2M Marketplace. The community also provides developers with the opportunity to exchange information and ideas with Deutsche Telekom experts and other community members on the forums.

“Our M2M Developer Community is designed to serve as a central point of contact and exchange for M2M developers globally,” says Rainer Deutschmann, senior vice president, Core Telco Products at Deutsche Telekom’s Digital Business Unit. “Following the foundation of Deutsche Telekom’s M2M Competence Center and the launches of the Global M2M Association, our Partner Program and the M2M Marketplace, the M2M Developer Community is now a further stepping stone in executing our global M2M strategy.”

Supporting innovative partners in the growing M2M market is key to the sector’s development, while also critical to extending Deutsche Telekom’s M2M ecosystem, the company says. According to information from the OECD, around 5bn M2M devices exist worldwide and ten times as many are expected by 2020.

“To provide development and at the same time marketing support focussed specifically in the area of M2M is currently a unique approach,” says Jim Morrish, director of the research and consultancy company, Machina Research. “By incorporating its partners’ solution expertise in the identified sectors, Deutsche Telekom will be able to speed innovation and bring diverse applications to market more quickly in the future.”

Going forward, Deutsche Telekom says the M2M Developer Community will be further expanded by providing a dedicated programming environment for the creation and testing of rich M2M solutions, with the possibility for mash-up with an ever growing number of telecommunication and partner APIs and software components. The company says that, via its partnerships, the Developer Garden platform reaches up to 1m potential developers worldwide.

You can read an interview with Jürgen Hase, head of Deutsche Telekoms (DT) M2M Competence Center here.