Tag: internet of everything

Does the Internet of things need a killer app?

Cisco System’s search for an Internet of Everthing killer app may not be necessary.

Today was the opening of Cisco System’s Internet of Things conference in Barcelona, Spain and in the morning sessions there was constant question of what will be the killer app for this range of technologies.

A killer app is the application that drives adoption of a new technology – for the Personal Computer, it was spreadsheet programs that made systems attractive to company accountants and from there the PC made its way into the workplace.

Right now, you’d have to say parking systems are the great hope for the industry and this makes sense in that it’s an easy to explain to the general public and it helps solve an ongoing problem for local governments.

But does the Internet of Everything really need a killer app?

The Internet of everything is the coming together of various different technologies — cheap processors, pervasive internet, cloud computing and big data are all reasons why the concept has taken off.

In fact, many of the applications aren’t new, telemetry systems have been around since the early days of networks and even parking technologies like number plate recognition and space meters have become common over the last decade.

Across industries like logistics, mining and agriculture the Internet of Things or Machine to Machine (M2M) communications has been steadily growing with each new generation of connected equipment.

The difference with the next wave of technology is that devices are smarter and able to talk to each other which is where companies like Cisco see the opportunity of tapping into what they believe will be a 14 trillion dollar market by the end of the decade.

What concerns many in the industry is the risk of the technologies become proprietary islands where each major company has its own standards that don’t talk to the others.

The risk of vendor lock in is probably greater than the search for a killer app, indeed there’s no particular reason why anyone should be waiting for a compelling application to come along.

Instead of waiting for a killer app it’s probably better for industries to find their own uses for these technologies and steadily implement them.

While Cisco are almost certainly right about the impact of the Internet of Everything, it’s one of these pervasive technologies that changes everything in ways that aren’t immediately apparent like the motor car or the internet itself.

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Breaking the break-fix business model

Fixing broken products was a profitable business for many companies, the Internet of Everything is changing that industry model.

One of the most profitable areas for many companies has been in fixing broken products, now the internet of everything promises to put an end to that business model.

‘Break-fix’ has always been a good profit earner with business ranging from construction companies to washing machine manufacturers making good money from fixing failed products.

Speaking at a lunch in Sydney earlier today GE’s CEO of Global Growth and Operations, John Rice, described how the Internet of Everything is changing in the industrial landscape.

One of the big business changes Rice sees is in the ‘break-fix’ model of many industrial suppliers.

“We grew up in companies with a break fix mentality,” Rice says. “We sold you equipment and if it broke, you paid us more money to come and fix it.”

“Your dilemma was our profit opportunity,” Rice pointed out. Now, he says engineering industry shares risks with their customers and the break-fix business is no longer the profit centre it was.

Goodbye to the TV mechanic

This is true in many other industries as products become both more reliable and less economical to repair – the local TV repairman has largely vanished and the backyard computer support businesses are going the same way.

For many businesses, this means a change to how they service their customers and the nature of their operations. For many, it means close monitoring of their products will be essential to manage risk.

Rice also flagged how grid computing will improve the reliability of equipment and networks citing how giant wind turbine talk to each other.

“Every wind turbine has an anemometer on top that’s used to judge wind speed and direction,” says Rice. “If you had a problem with the anemometer the wind turbine shut down until someone could come out – maybe a week later – to climb to the top of the turbine, diagnose the problem and start the thing back up.”

“Today the technology is such that the wind turbines talk to each other so if you’re in a wind field of thirty turbines you don’t rely on one anemometer,” points out Rice. “This is a very simple example of machine to machine interface.”

Wind turbines and the road toll

Rice’s example of wind turbines talking to each other is similar to Cisco’s scenario of using the internet of everything to reduce the road toll where cars communicate with road signs, traffic lights and each other to monitor conditions on the highway ahead.

Those machines talking together also give early warnings of problems which reduces downtime and risk for industrial users, it also means less money for businesses who’ve made money from those problems.

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Intel’s challenge to find a new message and market

Can Intel adapt to the post PC marketplace where the old Wintel dominance no longer matters

Twenty years ago people cared about the specifications of their computers and chip maker Intel led the industry with its marketing of 486, Pentiums, Pentium Duos and Pentium IIs.

As we come to the end of the PC era, the consumerisation of technology and the rise of cloud computing mean customers no longer care about what’s inside their systems and Intel is struggling to find a new message.

Over the last few months Intel have been showing off their latest range of Central Processing Units (CPUs) to enterprise and small to medium business (SMB) groups. Last week the company hosted an SMB event in Sydney that illustrated how Intel is struggling to cut through the market.

Speaking at the event was Steph Hinds – an evangelist for cloud computing – who told the story of how her Growthwise accounting practice was flooding out during storms.

Because her systems were on the cloud Steph and her staff were able to work from home and local cafes while the landlord fixed her offices. Had Growthwise been using a server based system the business would have been crippled while her IT people implemented a disaster recovery plan.

Steph’s story in itself illustrated the Clean, Well Lighted Place argument for cloud computing and also showed how Intel is struggling to sell its PC and server upgrade cycle message in an era where that business model is dead.

This didn’t stop some of the other speakers at the small business event trying to sell the idea that upgrading computer systems and retaining an IT support company were essential to small business success but it’s a message that was valid a decade ago.

For Intel the challenge is to find a new message – it may well be that the company’s future lies in supplying the powerful CPUs that run data centres, or maybe the low energy and maintenance chips required to control the billions of intelligent devices that will run the internet of everything.

The company’s launch of their Galileo board – a tiny computer designed to compete in the intelligent devices market with the likes of the Raspberry Pi – is a step in the latter direction and shows Intel is exploring the possibilities.

Wherever Intel’s future lies, it doesn’t lie in trying to sell a business model that is quickly going the way of the Brontosaurus.

During most of the PC era, it was the Wintel partnership that dominated the computer industry, now Microsoft have realised this fundamental market change and started their journey to become a devices and services company.

The challenge now lies with Intel to decide where their journey will take them in a post PC world.

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Microsoft’s devices and services strategy starts taking shape with the Surface tablet

Does the Microsoft Surface show the company is starting to execute Steve Ballmer’s device and services strategy?

Microsoft’s latest version of their Surface tablet computer is the company’s first attempt at executing Steve Ballmer’s device and services strategy. If the company succeeds, there are some interesting implications for the tablet computer market.

Currently Microsoft is on a worldwide PR campaign to promote their latest range of Surface tablet computers. Last week during the Sydney leg of their tour I had the opportunity for a hands on demonstration of the new devices with Jack Cowett of the product’s marketing team.

The Surface itself is an interesting device with some major upgrades and changes as Microsoft begins to understand the tablet market with the device having more memory, better processors and battery life – although the lack of a cellular version is going to hinder its adoption by the consumer and small business markets.

Devices and services

It’s in the device’s integration with Microsoft’s cloud and communication services where the long term vision, and real story behind the Surface lies.

Most obvious is the bundling of services with purchasers of a Microsoft Surface 2 or Surface Pro getting 200Gb of Sky Drive storage and a year’s free international calls included with the device.

It’s an early taste of how Microsoft can combine services and devices that leverage off their existing position in the marketplace.

While these incentives may not be enough to convince customers that the Windows systems are a better buy than Android or Apple devices, integrating these cloud services makes the computers more powerful devices.

Keyboards as blades

Equally interesting with the Surface, is Microsoft’s devices play with the range of Surface covers that the company is informally calling ‘blades’ – an unfortunate choice of name which will confuse conversations with many IT managers.

Blade covers for Microsoft surface tablets
Blade covers for Microsoft surface tablets

These covers dispense with the usual keyboard electronic layout with an underlying layout featuring a 1024 sensor pad that give the covers more potential than just being keyboards.

As part of the Microsoft marketing push to show this aspect off, the company has released a blade cover with a sound mixer layout and seeded the devices with various DJs under the banner of the Remix Project.

While the blade covers have applications as sound mixers and keyboards, the number and  flexible nature of the 1080 built in sensors will see their application in other areas.

The way businesses have used tablet computers has taken manufacturers by surprise as  Google’s Eric Schmidt told last week’s Gartner conference and Microsoft’s devices open up more industrial applications.

Already the medical industry is applying Windows based tablets as Microsoft are proud to show off.

Should third party developers be able to develop their own skins for Surface blade covers then Microsoft may have a killer industrial device that plugs into existing Windows based networks.

Added to Microsoft’s opportunity is the possibility of plugging Surface devices into the internet of everything giving business users direct access to the machines in their organisation.

Should Microsoft be able to capture a slice of these markets, it may well be a pointer for the company’s future in a post-PC world.

Regardless of how well Microsoft do with the internet of everything, the latest range of Surface tablets and accessories shows how the company is executing its strategy of becoming a devices and services company.

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Building tomorrow’s markets

As technology evolves, it gets harder to predict what customers will want in the future.

“If I’d asked my customers we’d have built a faster horse,” is a quotation often attributed, probably incorrectly, to Henry Ford.

The point of the quote is that asking today’s customers about tomorrow’s market is pretty pointless when new products change consumer behaviour.

Just as the farmer of 1906 had no inkling of how the motor car, truck and tractor would change their business, the cellphone user of 2006 had no idea of how the iPhone would change the way they used a phone and communicated with the world.

Which brings us to Nokia.

The Sami Consulting blog discusses how Nokia lost their lead in the cellphone business as the market migrated the Apple and later Android smartphones.

Nokia’s problem was they spoke to their customers about their existing mobile phone use rather than considered how the technology might evolve.

When the inventors of the touchscreen approached Nokia, the company carefully evaluated the technology, consulted their customers and decided it wouldn’t work for their products.

What does this story tell about foresight?  First, it shows that innovation creates futures that are fundamentally unpredictable. We do not have facts or data about things that do not exist yet.  When a mobile phone becomes an internet device with sensors, touch screens, and broadband access, it becomes a new thing.  If you ask your existing customers what they like, the answer will always be about incremental improvements.  When you ask about the future, the answer will always be about history.

In many ways Nokia were the beneficiaries of a transition effect, they took advantage of a brief period of technological change  and were caught flat footed when the technologies evolved further.

To be fair, it’s hard to see that change when you’re focused on incremental improvements.

The motor car turned out to define the Twentieth Century – even Henry Ford couldn’t have foreseen how the automobile would change society and the design of our communities.

Both the motor industry and smartphone industries are going through major change, particularly as the internet of everything sees the two technologies coming together.

One thing is for sure, how we use our phones and cars over the next fifty years will be very different to how we use them today.

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Exploring the internet of everything

What does the internet of everything mean for businesses? Cisco’s Ken Boal explains.

As part of the Decoding the New Economy video series, I had the opportunity of interviewing Ken Boal, the head of Cisco Australia and New Zealand, about the Internet of Everything and how it will change business.

“The internet of everything is about things, it’s about people, process and it’s about data,” says Ken. “Compounding together to create new capabilities and drive opportunities for nations, enterprises, government and right down to consumers.”

“It’s a huge transition in the internet’s evolution.”

Reducing the road toll

A previous Cisco presentation looked at some of the ways the internet of everything can reduce road deaths, Ken sees this both private and public sector benefits of the connected economy flowing to consumers and the community.

“When you think about things like traffic congestion, health care and how education is delivered we know there’s huge opportunities for greater efficiency,” says Ken.

“Just on road safety, when we’ve got all the vehicles and trucks connected, when the traffic lights and traffic control systems are all connected,” suggests Ken, “then consumers are going be better informed about what is the most efficient route to work.”

“Cars will be communicating with each other to reduce fatalities and collisions in the future as well.”

Bringing together industrial, consumer  and public safety technologies creates a grid of connected devices, including cars, that improve public safety while making industries more efficient.

Of course these connected services come with risks to privacy, particularly when multiple points of data can triangulated despite each individual item being anonymous on their own.

What Ken finds is particularly important is the current value of these technologies with Cisco predicting $1.4 billion in productivity gains through the internet of everything this year, half of which are available for businesses.

A warning for Australia

For Australia, the concern is that business and the economy in general is falling behind, Cisco’s recent Internet of Everything Value Index rated Australia among the BRIC countries in adopting the new technologies.

“We’ve always counted Aussies as fairly innovative and leading edge,” says Ken. “Australia is ranked tenth out of the twelve largest economies in the adoption of internet of everything capablities.”

The countries leading – such as Japan, Germany and the United States – have had a solid record of investing in technology, “in Australia, we’ve had that in the past but we’ve lost our mojo.” Ken says, “IT has been viewed more as a problem – a cost to business – rather than a provider of productivity for the long term.”

How business can adapt

For businesses, the question is how can they take advantage of the internet of everything? “You don’t have to start from scratch,” says Ken. “There are a whole heap of use cases for every vertical.”

“Start to drive some innovation. Think about your business processes at the front end where you touch your customers, look at your supply chains and your back office arrangements driving workforce productivity and how fast can you deliver new innovations to the market.”

“Internet of everything themes can address a whole host of these different processes in different parts of your business.”

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Bringing social networking to life

One startup project shows how different technologies are coming together to change our business world.

One of the highlights of the 2013 Australian Microsoft TechEd was a startup panel featuring local startups CoOpRating, Project Tripod and Nubis.

All three startups are interesting projects and Nubis in particular illustrated how various internet and smartphone technologies which are coming together.

Nubis is an Augmented Reality platform that projects social media onto the viewer of a smartphone’s camera. By pointing the camera at someone, the idea is a user can bring up details about a person.

“We’re bringing social networking to life,” says founder Uzi Bar-On.

As part of their Alphega project, Nubis has teamed with Glass Up, an Italian startup attempting to create a Google Glass competitor, the aim is to create a wearable computer that feeds social media information to the wearer.

While it’s not clear what the benefits will be of that – or whether Glass Up, Nubis or Alphega will be successful – the project is interesting as it brings together Augmented Reality, geolocation, wearable technologies and social media.

Over the next few years we’ll be seeing more products like Alphega tying together different technologies and using the Internet of Everything to talk to each other.

It’s these sort of projects that will show us how our businesses and lives are going to change over the next decade as smart people figure out the ways to mash together these technologies.

Paul travelled to Microsoft TechEd 2013 courtesy of Microsoft Australia

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