Machines communicating back and forth is a primary concept in the evolution of smart utilities, the smart grid, automation and so much more. When this capability is supported in the cloud, third parties can leverage extended development opportunities to integrate new solutions.

Viewbiquity (News - Alert) is one company causing a stir in this industry. To gain a closer view of Viewbiquity’s latest happenings, TMCnet’s Managing Editor Stefanie Mosca sat down with Tom Shafron, chief executive officer of Viewbiquity, at the recently concluded ITEXPO West 2011, which took place in Austin, TX. The interview was captured in this video.

Viewbiquity is expanding the definition of machine to machine (M2M) with process to process solutions. The company offers a cloud service with an application platform that allows third parties, end users and integrators to develop applications to integrate devices and business processes, while providing a single platform to pull together multiple vertical solutions.

Shafron shared, “businesses can then tie different vertical solutions together and integrate those processes, but M2M is not without problems.” Shafron says complexity and costs to carry out solutions are the biggest challenges.

Viewbiquity is poised to drive down costs by establishing infrastructure that reduces complexity of building out applications and integrating processes in M2M. This is exactly why businesses are hesitant to make this move. They want to evaluate the long-term costs and determine whether or not the vendor is offering a proprietary solution. This can limit their choices in the future, according to Shafron.

Viewbiquity is a hybrid cloud solution. The cloud stores the applications, configurations and information required for business processes. It then carries out the logic and business processes to app servers that can actually be in the cloud or within a company’s physical facilities.

Developers have a significant opportunity to benefit from this cloud-based application, according to Shafron. With Viewbiquity, users can create an application, or script, and share it with the community. When it’s done once, someone can leverage that work and developers can control the work they have done. The developer can sell it, charge a subscription fee or open source it.

“We have a pretty robust infrastructure to give developers access to their work,” Shafron says. This access opens up a global market full of opportunities.

Want to learn more about the latest in communications and technology? Then be sure to attend ITEXPO East 2012, taking place Feb. 1-3, 2012 in Miami, Fla. ITEXPO (News - Alert) offers an educational program to help corporate decision makers select the right IP-based voice, video, fax and unified communications solutions to improve their operations. It's also where service providers learn how to profitably roll out the services their subscribers are clamoring for – and where resellers can learn about new growth opportunities. To register, click here.

Susan J. Campbell is a contributing editor for TMCnet and has also written for eastbiz.com. To read more of Susan’s articles, please visit her columnist page.

Edited by Jennifer Russell