Mr. Schumacher, Beck IPC is generating a turnover of around 6 to 7 million euros this year with 30 employees! Was the sale of your company unavoidable?

Thomas Schumacher: We have invested heavily in the development of new technologies and products in recent years. However, in order to be able to offer these products globally in a networked world, we need more than just products; we need a first-class sales organization with first-class logistics and quality, wherever our customers are located. With the HMS Group, we can now meet these requirements and deliver a complete package that is unique in the networking sector today - in this sense, the sale was inevitable!

Your company's core product - the IPC@Chip, a compact, programmable embedded platform solution in the form factor of a chip - was strongly tailored to the market for embedded M2M solutions. Do you no longer have confidence in the burgeoning market for embedded M2M solutions?

Schumacher: The opposite is the case: even if I tend to lean more towards the term IIoT today, I see us at a turning point in the direction of implementation. While we have only been talking about IIoT for the last few years, we are now moving into implementation with our customers after many proofs of concept. IIoT is now! And that's why we now need the strength of a global player.

Looking back: Would you set Beck IPC's development priorities differently today?

Schumacher: I believe that today, with our cloud approach, the new embedded platform IoT@Chip and our experience in many projects, we have achieved the highest level of attractiveness for the company. Together with the entire HMS Group, we are now going into global marketing in the burgeoning market, so we have certainly not done anything wrong in terms of development.

Mr. Volz, should the takeover be seen less in terms of synergy and more in terms of substitution? After all, you already have similar product groups in your range at HMS with eWON and Ixxat.

Michael Volz: It is important for us to strengthen the IIoT strategy of HMS! The hardware and software products from Beck IPC and the existing knowledge for the IIoT - especially in the embedded area - are important building blocks on this path. There is very little overlap with our existing solutions; in fact, the Beck solutions complement our Anybus, Ixxat and eWON solutions and help us to open up new areas of application outside of factory automation.

What does the roadmap for company integration look like?

Volz: Beck IPC and HMS have been working together successfully for many years. With this strategic partnership, we have already passed the "trial period", so to speak. We are taking our time with the integration. We want to intensify our cooperation by the end of the year and gradually integrate the Beck team in Wetzlar and Bonn even more deeply into the HMS organization. The global rollout of Beck products via the HMS sales organization is planned for the beginning of 2019.

What does the product integration look like? What is important to you and what will you remove from the portfolio?

Volz: The basic technology - the IPC@Chip - is at the heart of Beck IPC's product range for industrial OEMs. We will use this technology to further expand our embedded Anybus solution offering for device manufacturers.

The ComTom gateways already complement the Anybus and Ixxat gateway portfolio of HMS with additional protocol variants and are particularly suitable as edge gateways, as they enable the pre-processing and filtering of data on the way from the field level to the cloud thanks to the integrated Web PLC or on the basis of Codesys. Of particular interest is the Kolibri cloud solution, with which our customers can implement an on-premise cloud server and broker without major development costs of their own, rounding off the eWON portfolio for remote services.

Who will be in charge of the Beck IPC division in the future and when will the BeckIPC color and logo disappear?

Volz: Mr. Schumacher and I have taken over the management of Beck IPC GmbH together. Mr. Schumacher is responsible for business development and innovation, while I am in charge of integration and operations. Our current strategy in the medium term is to integrate Beck IPC's standard products into the internationally renowned core brands of the HMS Group, Anybus, eWON and Ixxat. We will continue to offer customer-specific solutions under the Beck IPC brand. We will market well-known trademarks such as IPC@Chip and IIoT@Chip throughout the Group.

Details of the acquisition

The Swedish company HMS Industrial Networks AB acquired 100% of Beck IPC GmbH on July 17, 2018. Beck IPC will be integrated into the HMS Group as an independent German subsidiary. At the same time, Michael Volz, long-standing Managing Director of the European HMS sales organization, was appointed Chairman of the Management Board of Beck IPC GmbH and Thomas Schumacher, long-standing Managing Director of Beck IPC GmbH, was confirmed in his function as Managing Director.

Beck's core product is the IPC@Chip. IPC@Chip is a compact, programmable embedded platform solution in the form factor of a chip. Tailor-made for embedded IIoT applications, the IPC@Chip can be used as a PLC, a communication controller or a combination of both. OEMs benefit from reduced development effort when creating an IIoT solution and a short time-to-market. Beck IPC's portfolio also includes the com.tom gateways and the associated cloud portal. The gateway product family addresses factory and process automation. The cloud portal provides elements for an IIoT application.