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?