The IoT and IoE

At that time Wikipedia suggested the term was first used by Kevin Ashton, a British technology pioneer, who co-founded the Auto ID Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The term Internet of Things, is described as “a system where the Internet is connected to the physical world via ubiquitous sensors.”¹

UCStrategies Vendor Community Member IBM has been talking about “A Smarter Planet" since 2009.² The premise is a simple one involving data and how industries collaborate. The challenge is to turn data into something that can be more useful to the enterprise. According to IBM in a 2012 release, “The More We Know, The More We Want” over 2.5 quintillion bytes of new data are created daily.

Leveraging big data allows cities to better plan utility consumption. For example, if you knew that the demand for water between the hours of 6:00 a.m. and 8:00 a.m. would peak at 7:02 a.m. and that most of the water was required was to be heated, repairs could be forecasted, hydro requirements could be pre-determined, water production and purification can be programmed, recycling and re-capture efforts could be scheduled, all leveraging what is now known as Big Data and gathering information from the Internet of Things.

Fast forward just 16 months since that article was submitted and the Internet of Things may be poised for an update to the “Internet of Everything.”

Recently, another UCStrategies Vendor Community Member, Cisco, made some headlines when talking about the Internet of Everything in a press release entitled, “Internet of Everything Expected to Generate $613 Billion in Profits in 2013 dated June 19, 2013.” The article went on to state,

“The study of 7,500 global business and IT leaders in 12 countries reports that the United States, China and Germany are expected to realize the greatest value in 2013. However, the study also found that corporations could nearly double those profits through greater adoption of business practices, customer approaches and technologies that leverage IoE. While IoE is already driving private-sector corporate profits, it is estimated that an additional $544 billion could be realized if companies adjusted their strategies to better leverage it.”³

In another article posted on Government Technology, May 2, 2013, was this quote:

“The U.S., of course, isn’t the only nation eyeing the Internet of Everything’s potential. Over the next two years, China will spend more than $12 billion developing 90 pilot communities as part of a smart city initiative. The first phase of development, says Gartner Research Vice President Bettina Tratz-Ryan, will be to build out the cities’ initial infrastructure on top of which the rest of the technology can be built. The initiative outlines a five-year plan that will eventually connect everything together — cloud computing, high-speed Internet, smart cars, mobile phones, GPS, video cameras and all other components of the Internet of Things.” ⁴

Others recognize the potential of Internet of Everything as well. XMPro⁵, recognized as a “Gartner Cool Vendor” in business process in April 2012, has developed use cases for a number of verticals including WellMonitor Oil & Gas, PatientMonitor Healthcare, EnergyMonitor for Property & Building Management, among others. What I think makes this unique is that it provides a method to collect and store data from a smart device to the cloud, which can produce potential workflow and management tasks.

The Internet of Everything also includes the products that are targeted to the consumer. Some of this can be found in wearable technology such as the Samsung Galaxy Gear to be unveiled September 4. Rumors suggest full color display, touchscreen gestures, Bluetooth 4.0, and NFC all sitting on your wrist. Textronics, a division of Adidas Wearable Sports, have textile sensors capable of monitoring heart rate and respiration providing feedback to the user on calorie expenditure, fitness level and more.

This isn’t just a short term trend or fad, but something that has the potential to change the world in which we live in a very profound way. UC, Cloud, networks, enterprise and even the consumer will at some point in time need to consider what the long term impact will be and how to accommodate this change.

Kane MacKay & Associates publishes a daily paper that tracks daily articles on Twitter about the Internet of Everything using the hastags #IoE and #IoT. To subscribe, see https://paper.li/kanemackay/1376921442

¹ Source Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Ashton

² See Mandate for Change, https://www.ibm.com/smarterplanet/global/files/ca__en_us__overview__68655_08_522_11092012.pdf

³ Press release, San Jose, Calif. June 19, 2013, https://newsroom.cisco.com/press-release-content?articleId=1209280

⁴Government Technology, May 2 2013, https://www.govtech.com/e-government/What-is-the-Internet-of-Everything.html

⁵ XMPro Internet of Things, https://xmpro.com/xmpro-iot/

2 Responses to "The IoT and IoE" - Add Yours

Bruce Burgess 8/30/2013 11:12:30 AM

Bill - A very enlightening article. On the bright side, we are closing in on technologies that will improve living on a individual basis. On the dark side, those same technologies are subject to malicious mischief it not criminal conduct by hackers of devices and data repositories. I hope that the developers of these technologies are thinking beyond life improvement and also thinking about life maintenance, i.e. data protection via increased security algorithms.

Bill MacKay 9/4/2013 8:33:59 AM

Thanks Bruce and I agree that security needs to be a first and primary concern. With the proposed network complexity and the need for many levels of connectivity, the potential for compromise is significant.