Internet of Things, or IoT, is a topical conversation these
days. Companies with vested interest,
such as Cisco, have announced this market to be $Billions and $Billions in the
not so distant future. What is the internet of things? What are the “things”?
The word “thing” is a good one here. You can add “no” and “every” to the front of
it and get other proper words. So IoT
can mean “nothing” and “everything”. That exactly
what it means today!
A market of nothing and everything is not a real
market. It’s either a ZERO billion
dollar market (nothing) or an infinite billion dollar market (Everything). Zero dollar markets don’t sell market
research reports and space at trade shows.
So the industry tends to favor the infinite dollar market. So we see reports of IoT being a $19 TRILLION
market (Cisco), $14 to $33 Trillion (Mckinsey) and a mere $2 Trillion market
(Gartner).
We’ve seen this movie before. In the 1990’s the market for “Multimedia” was
predicted to be many billions and more recently we hear the market for “Cleantech”
will be multiple billions. Yet, like the
term IoT, these words meant nothing
and everything.
When asked what multimedia applications were the answers
were always video editing, video conferencing, training and kiosk. Not sure about “kiosk” but the other three
are not multimedia applications they are specific identifiable markets.
Similarly, what are cleantech applications? Energy efficiency, renewable energy and smart
grid are often the answer. Here again,
these are not cleantech applications, they are specific identifiable
markets.
So let’s drop the hype around IoT and start talking about
real markets that combine sensors, IP networks and analytics. I almost said “Big data”, but that’s another “nothing”
and “everything” market.
For further discussion please contact me at gwhelan@greywale.com
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