The global economy is picking up, even though a dark cloud still looms over the Euro zone. The financial results that Telit and others have reported recently are very positive and there are further indications that M2M /IoT is bucking the trend.
Solutions deliver tangible benefits, for example a boost in productivity, better customer service, or the ability to introduce new business models, but is there a less obvious reason? The independent analyst and writer of machine-to-machine (M2M) communications, Bob Emmerson decided to ask three experts.
Alexander Bufalino, CMO, Telit Wireless Solutions: “The economy is already starting to reap the early benefits from what is certainly to be a hockey-stick style rise in productivity coming from the convergence of the Internet of Things (IoT), Cloud Computing and Big Data. There has been a lot blogged, said and written about that. But we believe that connecting the enterprise to the edge, in what has recently been dubbed ‘Fog Computing’, will significantly and quickly change the way we measure and evaluate operational process efficiencies, customer satisfaction, challenging the fundamental definition of an end-product or a value added service. Value chains will have a hard time staying still as these new models and processes arise, creating new opportunities for value creation as well as role consolidation.”
Robert Andres, CMO, Eurotech Group: “In future the economy will be more and more digital: an ‘economy of bits’ is emerging that will surround – and will probably overshadow – the traditional ‘economy of atoms’ that has been ruling the world for decades. A new raw material is coming to fruition: device data. Smart objects – or generally speaking, smart things – are interesting, but without the possibility to collect, filter, store, analyse, and process the data that such smart objects can generate when disseminated in the real world, there will be no true economic value. For example, it’s hard to conceive a Big Data application without first conceiving a proper data collection solution. And guess what? M2M/IoT platforms are the key to enable device data management. In other words, M2M/IoT platforms are the necessary building block to enable the economy of bits. That’s why you see an accelerating growth in this field.”
Gilli Coston, Wyless CSO and MD EMEA: “There is both an infectious excitement and a highly publicised expectation that the IoT will be the next evolution of the internet, mobility and IT. Where these worlds converge, growth follows. Today hype is giving way to reality. IoT growth rates already exceed those of the economy. With so many new entrants, experience and trusted partners count for a lot. We know that our investments of the last 11 years in M2M systems, processes and services are the things that help customers speed up their time-to-market as well as the things that provide the valuable data that can turn into digital services for our own use and for use in new customer offers.
“The energy, excitement and economic benefits that result from IoT’s growth are driving change. For example, new ways of working, new services that can be enjoyed, and new regional and global competition. From manufacturing to insurance, from cars or healthcare and watches, IoT is changing our world and that creates excitement,” says Coston.
Those dark clouds are looking particularly ominous following the result of the Greek election, but I’m quietly confident that the politicians will come up with a fudged solution.
Meanwhile, the prognosis for M2M/IoT is positive, innovation continues on several fronts, and the business case is compelling, overwhelming at times. The latter would seem to be the main reason why the industry is bucking the economic trend.
The author of this blog is the independent M2M writer and analyst, Bob Emmerson.
He can be contacted at: bob.emmerson@melisgs.nl
