At the 2010 Sprint (News - Alert) Developer Conference, Bug Labs announced its strategic partnership with Sprint to help develop, test and deploy innovative machine-to-machine (M2M) wireless devices. As the Gold Sponsor of the event, Bug Labs will also lead a session titled, “Bug Labs: M2M and the Open Hardware Revolution (News - Alert),” presented by CEO, Peter Semmelhack.

BUG is Bug Labs’ open hardware development platform that can be used by product designers and developers to build, program and deploy new wireless devices that are pre-approved to run on the Sprint 3G networks, without the need to undergo costly and time-consuming testing and certification steps.

Discrete hardware modules, Sprint 3G network-ready modems as well as associated software are all included in the BUG platform electronic toolkit that helps create new, custom wireless devices. Bug Labs has also been selected as equipment partner for the new Sprint M2M Collaboration Center that was recently launched in California. New products, as well as service ideas for M2M and embedded computing technology, will be put to experiment at this center based on the interaction between partners, enterprises and customers.

According to the industry analyst firm Infonetics (News - Alert), an estimated 87 million embedded mobile M2M connections were recorded last year, and the number is expected to reach 428 million by 2014. Proliferation of new mobile devices, applications, services and providers, along with the high-availability of high speed wireless networks are some of the factors governing the current M2M market opportunity.

In a press release, Wayne Ward, vice president of Emerging Solutions for Sprint, said, “Sprint, we recognize that the M2M market holds vast promise. We look for open hardware partners to help us forge the path for M2M device innovation, and we find Bug Labs to be a natural choice. This week’s milestones further demonstrate to the industry that Sprint is dedicated to opening its networks up to developers and devices of all kind. We can’t wait to see what innovations result from these initiatives.”

BUGbase forms the basis of the BUG platform which is a powerful palm-sized, ARM-based computer with embedded WiFi (News - Alert) and Bluetooth. Additionally, it can be integrated with a number of modules such as sensors, i/o adapters, GPS, LCD screens, camera, motion detectors and more, to create a wide variety of instantly deployable devices.