The ‘Internet of Things’ is a way of saying that more of the world will become part of the network. That is what is going on. We are assimilating the world into the computer. It’s just more and more computers – Gordon Bell, Microsoft researcher and a pioneer of the original computer revolution.
Bell was quoted in an article announcing the release of the MIT Technology Review latest business report on the IoT. These are bi-monthly reports on the intersection of technology and business. MIT Business Reports give executives and entrepreneurs consistent insights into how emerging technologies can transform companies, disrupt markets, or create entirely new industries.
This time around, the report is on the IoT. Billions of tiny computers that can sense and communicate from anywhere are coming online, creating the IoT, and the report examines what this will mean for business?
The report includes:
*A downloadable report plus charts and infographics
*Profiles on leading companies highlighted in the sector
*Complete Web access to the special report
In the article in the MIT Technology Review, writer Antonio Regalado says the technology industry was preparing for the IoT, a type of computing characterized by small, “often dumb”, usually unseen computers attached to objects. These devices sense and transmit data about the environment or offer new means of controlling it.
The IoT is especially important for companies that sell network equipment, like Cisco Systems. Another beneficiary is the US $300 billion semiconductor industry. “But every shift promises pain, too,”writes Regalado. Large companies like Intel are already reeling from the rapid emergence of smartphones. Intel, with its powerful, power-hungry chips, was shut out of phones. So was Microsoft. Now both these companies, and many others, are groping to find the winning combination of software, interfaces, and processors for whatever comes next.
But it’s not just technology companies that must stay alert this time around, says the writer. Marshall Van Alstyne, a professor at Boston University, explains in the report that is that as ordinary products become connected, their manufacturers may enter information businesses whose economics are alien to them. It’s one thing to manufacture shoes, but what about a shoe that communicates? Products could turn out to be valuable mainly as the basis for new services.
The business report itself talks of the entire gamut of things around the IoT – from the economics of it to goes on to talk of the Nest ‘smart’ thermostat to how even the lowly light bulb has got a digital makeover.
Here’s where you can obtain a copy of the business report.
Image Credit: MIT Technology Review
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