[img_assist|nid=20162|title=|desc=|link=popup|align=left|width=100|height=150]DM: DT’s Developer Garden portal is already well regarded I understand. Why have you now also launched a Developer Community specifically for M2M?

JH: Over the past three years, Developer Garden has grown into a successful hub for programmers. Over 7,000 users are already active on the portal. We now want to continue this success story and integrate our M2M Developer Community into the Developer Garden portal.

We are offering M2M solutions developers a knowledge exchange and networking platform, expert support, as well as practical APIs and help with programming SDKs. The Developer Community will be an ideas catalyst to support the growth of M2M technology. We believe that in the future, we will need new ideas and solutions for a variety of applications in different industries.

DM: How will the portal benefit developers and what will they find there?

JH: Through the Developer Community, we are offering programmers access to DT’s connectivity services, so that they can integrate these services easily into their M2M solutions. For example: let’s say a developer wants to determine the location of the relevant smartphone user for a mobile business app. He can easily integrate this functionality into his application by using our location API.Programmers from all over the world can exchange ideas and implementation methods on the portal. In addition to the community, a team of DT experts is available to offer advice for more complex queries. Developers can also purchase the hardware they need for a project on our M2M marketplace with just a few clicks. We will shortly be offering developers a very exciting new tool which can test an M2M solution in a virtualized environment and, where applicable, quickly clear any bugs.

DM: And what help will you offer developers to take their products to market?

JH: This is where the M2M Marketplace, which we launched at the beginning of June, can help them. It is here that we bring together all the players in M2M communication, and give developers the opportunity to market their programs. In this way, we want to significantly shorten the time between the idea and commercialization.

DM: M2M is a complex topic. What makes you think you can add value to the ecosystem with this M2M developer portal?

JH: We have many years’ experience in M2M. In 2010, we bundled our international knowledge and expertise into the M2M Competence Center. We not only provide the network connectivity at competitive prices; we also bring network, IT know-how and industry competence together. We offer everything required for an M2M solution to work securely, from a single source, from pure data transmission through to complex applications. Finally, we have been able to gather experience in administering and supporting a developer portal over the past few years with the successful Developer Garden.

DM: OK, so two months ago, you launched the M2M marketplace. Today, it’s the M2M Developer Community. It’s good to see, but what’s driving this emphasis on innovation?

JH: We are convinced that the M2M market will boom over the coming years. According to information from the OECD, the number of networked machines will rise to approximately 50bn in 2020. There is no doubt that the demand for the various options provided by this technology will increase dramatically in nearly all industry sectors – the applications range from process optimization through to completely new business ideas.

At the same time, the market is extremely heterogeneous. We are therefore already opening ourselves up to developers whose innovative spirit we want to strengthen and support in practical terms, and whose competence and creativity we are bringing together with our infrastructure and experience. This results in strong partnerships, for example with start-ups, to whom we are granting access to global markets – and which give our company an advantage over international competition. We offer competence and diversity with which we want to conquer a large share of the market for ourselves and drive the market forwards.

Jürgen Hase is head of Deutsche Telekoms M2M Competence Center