t matix
Realizing IoT Minus the Programming

For Ralf Parfuss, defining his company is a simple five worded affair—IoT at the next level. The CEO elaborates how and why.

When the internet became a mass commodity toward the turn of this millennium, creating websites was a program-intensive labor; today someone unenlightened in programming can use a plethora of available tools to erect a website in a matter of hours. Internet’s youngest progeny, IoT, is now undergoing the same phase. All IoT initiatives are program and time-intensive. At times like these, Parfuss’s company, t-matix, gives the concept of IoT a whole new perspective by providing a platform that allows anyone to build IoT applications by eliminating the requirement of programming skills from the equation. The intelligent building block system and the numerous tools enable users to create custom applications in no time. In plain terms, application building is a task of drag and drop with t-matix. The platform entwines everything—connecting devices, building mobile apps and dashboards, workflows, managing data—and is supported by a single technology. “We unlock endless possibilities, from evaluation of one’s own data to the creation of commands for machines, predictive maintenance, remote diagnostics, performance optimization, to name a few.” This programming-free approach brings new opportunities for enthusiasts and IT professionals to translate their ideas into realities and monetize on them. A programming-free platform also means that developing IoT applications is now cheaper and time-to-market is shorter.

The company extends its service in two ways—t-matix creates a new telematics portal and provides support in choosing appropriate onboard units and data plans, or it provides training to transfer knowledge necessary to build complex telematic portals and mobile apps. And, if someone wants to use the t-matix platform for programming and use APIs for extended possibilities, the company does provide required customizations.

t-matix provides a Designer tool that is highly flexible, intuitive, and easy to use and can solve every scenario conceivable with a given set of data. One common issue many companies report in regards to data validation is poor data quality. While the cause can be a defective or incorrectly configured sensor, or a corrupted data source, solving this problem at the source (which may have thousands of sensors) is virtually impossible. The t-matix Designer brings in value in such cases by letting through only valid data that are subjected to user-specific configurable rules. The tool allows bi-directional real-time communication, and it can be scaled to connect any number of devices without sacrificing performance or user experience.

The company has an extensive network of partners through which it can deliver customized hardware that are fully integrated with its IoT platform. “Our platform is manufacturer-agnostic that creates an open system, allowing, in principle, all hardware, software, and their protocols to connect with us.” This undergirding ability serves as the conduit for data aggregation which combined with the firm’s deep analytics know-how affords customers a means to mine value from their data and optimize their products and processes.

The scope of IoT being tumefying means that t-matix’s relevance expands across different industry verticals and varied scenarios. Currently the company, Parfuss says, has a wide deployment in the construction & logistics, industry, marine, OEM, and smart city sectors. The company has been serving the biggest construction company in Austria along with some global players across these sectors.

Having a strong presence in Europe (especially in the UK, Netherlands, Germany, Croatia, and Spain) and Brazil, Parfuss reveals that the firm is working on extending its footprint in the US. “We want to become one of the leading IoT platform suppliers in Europe and to do so we will keep expanding the functionalities of our platform to keep it few steps of others.”