20 Reasons Why the Internet of Things will be Big and Important


IOT, The Infinite Bridge?
How big and important will the internet of things and machine to machine technologies be over the next 5-10 years? The analysts all say it is big, and big companies are placing significant bets that the combination of devices, cloud technologies and big data will bring in a new era of productivity and capability.

So I've been doing a lot of reading - and below is a mix of metrics, company strategies, and technologies on the Internet of Things and M2M technologies

Metrics and Predictions

  • IDC estimates the machine-to-machine represented only 11% of the total [data growth] in 2005, but will grow to 41% by 2020.
  • Wikibon projected the spend on the Industrial Internet to grow from $20 billion in 2012 to about $514 billion in 2020. The value created is expected to grow from $23 billion in 2012 to about $1,279 in 2020. 
  • 10 Reasons You Can't Ignore IOT - In 2008, the number of things connected to the internet exceeded the number of people on Earth and that is still less than 1% of all the physical things in the world today.
  • Smart City Opportunities - Navigant Research is forecasting revenues from smart city technologies to surpass $20 billion in 2020.
  • Cisco’s Internet Business Solutions Group (IBSG) predicts some 25 billion devices will be connected by 2015, and 50 billion by 2020. 
  • IOT Changes Everything - By 2015, not only will 75 percent of the world's population have access to the internet. So will some six billion devices.
  • By 2025, the 12 technologies — led by the mobile Internet, the automation of knowledge work, and the Internet of Things — have the potential to deliver economic value of up to $33 trillion a year worldwide

Company Strategies

  • The Googlization Of GE - Whatever the size of the market generated by analysis of sensor data, GE aims to capture some of it, adding to the revenue it is already generating through “the use of analytics to automate processes, optimize performance, eliminate downtime, and predict when a machine or component will fail,” 
  • Cisco defines IoE as bringing together people, process, data, and things to make networked connections more relevant and valuable than ever before
  • Rackspace's Human Cloud - wearable technology revolution is powered by the cloud and 82% of wearable technology users in America and 71 percent in Britain say that these cloud-powered devices enhance their lives
  • IBM's M2M Computing Solution - It squeezes a process that previously required up to 280 computers into a single 2U rackmount-configured hardware "appliance"
  • AT&T is adding two innovation centers focusing on what At&T dubs machine to machine connectivity 
  • Android is becoming the standard operating system for the “Internet of things”

Technologies

  • Adhesive Smart Labels -  can monitor how products such as fresh produce, which is sensitive to temperature, has been treated during the supply chain will be obtainable for the sector in 2014
  • Ayla's IOT Starter Kit - Ayla which has raised $5.4 million unveiled a Wi-Fi module with software to connect household devices to home networks and cloud services
  • Environment monitoring - has built-in sensors for measuring air composition (CO and NO2), light intensity, temperature, sound, and humidity levels
  • IOT in a pill - The tiny computer can track medication-taking behaviors - "did grandma take her pills today, and what time?" 
  • BioPatch Sensor -  a tiny, paper-thin patch that collects vital health information
  • IOT Cloud + Starter Kit - LogMeIn has launched a cloud platform that inventors and developers can use to create next-generation connected devices, and it’s partnered with ARM to provide a “Jumpstart” kit to speed up the process.
  • IPSO 2013 Challenge Winner - Need to know how much power that flows through a specific power cord, and see the information directly on your smartphone?
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The Internet of Things Will Deliver Big Data's Promise

The Internet of Things
I have mixed success as a futurist, but I'm fairly convinced that the Internet of Things and Machine to Machine technologies will be one of the next waves of major technology advances.

My experience at being a futurist is limited and based on personal experience. In the mid '90s when Web 1.0 became the next platform for Media, I joined a SaaS startup that helped newspapers develop new digital revenue streams with their editorial and classified ad content. When Web 2.0 and social media technologies made it easier for users to share information, my partner and I developed TripConnect, a travel site for sharing travel reviews and questions with your connections and groups believing the more personal experience would gain followers and establish better leads for travel agencies. Social is not just for personal relationships, so I joined BusinessWeek to develop Business Exchange, a website for sharing articles under business topics all prioritized by user activity.

At McGraw Hill Financial, I continue to bring a startup culture, innovation, and entrepreneur mindset to its businesses by transforming IT using a structured Agile Planning and Development practice. So at McGraw Hill Construction, we've developed a new set of Big Data Analytics capabilities and products that lets customers - largely building product manufacturers, general contractors, and subcontractors, size their market, target relationships, and prioritize prospects.

I also have some misses. I thought cloud computing was just glorified hosting. My initial impression of the iPad was that it was an iPhone with a larger screen.

IOT Predictions


But when I was asked recently by SearchCIO-Midmarket about my prediction about the next big technology, I responded with the Internet of Things. There are several advancements making this happen, including
  • The cost of off the shelf smart, network enabled chips and starter boards has dropped and engineers have options. Examples include Broadcom's BCM4390 chip to Ayla Network's IOT starter kit.
  • There are many options to connect devices to cloud based, data collection services such as ThingWorx, OpenIOT, Osiot, and ThingSpeak.
  • The Machine to Machine standards and development tools are improving including Konetki, OMA-DM
  • The availability of Big Data platforms to process the data, and the growing expertise in how to develop algorithms and analytics from the data collected.
  • IOT applications span multiple industries and domains, everything from wearable computing, to health care, to smarter cities.
This is my intro post to this topic. So while I've covered areas including Agile, CIO Advice, Innovation, Organizational change, Enterprise 2.0, and BigData, today I add IOT to the list.
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About Isaac Sacolick

Isaac Sacolick is President of StarCIO, a technology leadership company that guides organizations on building digital transformation core competencies. He is the author of Digital Trailblazer and the Amazon bestseller Driving Digital and speaks about agile planning, devops, data science, product management, and other digital transformation best practices. Sacolick is a recognized top social CIO, a digital transformation influencer, and has over 900 articles published at InfoWorld, CIO.com, his blog Social, Agile, and Transformation, and other sites. You can find him sharing new insights @NYIke on Twitter, his Driving Digital Standup YouTube channel, or during the Coffee with Digital Trailblazers.