IoT platform is collection of technologies that enables sensors, machines and devices called things to connect to the internet, control, monitor,display and analyze the things and sensor data over the internet to make home automation, increase productivity of enterprises or different industrial factories. For making IoT platform we need both hardware and software.
IBM Watson IoT platform
IBM provides cloud server with IoT enabled applications that allows users to get insights into IoT devices data analytics. A user connects their IoT devices(sensors, actuators, machines) to their cloud server using MQTT or HTTP or REST and other real-time APIs and then perform application development to monitor the sensor data, make graphs and display to analyze the sensor or machine data and take action to improve performance. IBM watson IoT provides artificial intelligence(AI) based application to improve data analytics and improve machine performance. By analyzing the data, users can extract valuable information to improve business model.The IBM watson IoT webpage provides use cases of IoT solutions like Enterprise asset management, Facilities management, Systems engineering, assets tracking, inventory tracking etc.You can sign up for IBM cloud server for IoT at the following url
https://cloud.ibm.com/catalog/services/internet-of-things-platform#about
