A lot of big questions were asked at CompTIA ChannelCon – the association’s yearly event held last week at the JW Marriott Phoenix Desert Ridge Resort and Spa in Phoenix – and a big one was asked and answered in a panel discussion titled Can the Internet of Things be Monetized? The short answer was yes, but the panelists’ takes on this certainly differed.
The Internet of Things (IOT), of course, is a proposed development of the Internet in which everyday objects have network connectivity, allowing them to send and receive data. Dave Gilbert, CEO of SimpleSignal, began his remarks on IOT by talking up not so much how it can be monetized but what it will be able to do, which was useful as it got the crowd excited. IOT, he explained, can first help with locating items; this is already in use if you look at technologies like iPhone finders. It will also help with what he termed “the brother-in-law problem” – when a piece of equipment has been borrowed by someone and its owner either forgets or is unaware. In these situations, IOT can determine the object’s status and even how long it’s been there. Gilbert also explained how IOT could assist with consumption. For example, a refrigerator could monitor what food it contains and generate its own grocery list. IOT could help you determine whether or not you should rent versus buy big ticket items like a car or a lawnmower. Gilbert said, “All these things are going to be affected and you, entrepreneurs, are going to make money off them.”
Mark Sondergaard, vice president of national channel strategy and development at Alteva, sought to define IOT’s challenges and enablers in his remarks. “All of these companies – that are not linked – are creating things that tap into IOT,” Sondergaard said. “All of this information is uploaded into the cloud, but for what? It will come down to the people in this room to figure that out.” He cited security and privacy as the main challenges to IOT. “Cybercriminals will impact how we build these things,” he said. As enablers of IOT, Sondergaard pointed to miniaturization, which will lessen devices’ power needs, and mobility in general, which allows everyone to stay constantly connected. “A big world is coming to us with all these new things,” he said. “We just have to be careful.”
John Rice, senior director of the partner community at Intermedia, re-termed IOT the Internet of Important Things, meaning us – people. To illustrate this point, he focused on two industry verticals; fitness and health care. As examples, he cited Fitbits, tech-based bracelets that track daily activity, calories burned, sleep and weight, and iPhones’ ability to check pulses. Using these new technologies, people have more ways than ever before to monitor themselves.
So, Rice asked, “What does all this mean? How do we make money off it?” Rice’s answer was a bit more grounded than the other panelists. Most in the channel will not write apps using IOT, he asserted. He then asked the audience, “Who here sells bandwidth? Do you make money off it?” One audience member quickly answered, “I do and I have a second home in Scottsdale.” This illustrated Rice’s point that there’s money to be made selling bandwidth and the coming increase in IOT is only going to increase demand for it. “If you’re not selling it now,” he concluded, “go off and become a bandwidth agent.”
Dave Sobel, director, partner community, GFI MAX Ltd., brought the session back to futuristic predictions with his presentation. He began his remarks by asserting it isn’t a question of can IOT be monetized, it’s a question of how. This will be accomplished, he said, via “a cheese slicer [that] can be made intelligent” or houses that can configure themselves for a certain person to enter at a certain time. “Think about where this is exploding,” he said. “Cars are getting more intelligent. [So are] surfaces. Clothes.” Sobel predicted all this will soon outpace tablets. So, he advised, “Think about the kinds of devices that are now becoming IT devices and build systems around them.”
The panel’s comments got a little more freewheeling during the question and answer section of the discussion. Rice commented on how far wearable technology can go by saying, “You could be stark naked and connect to a network as long as you have a sensor connected to your whatever.” When an attendee raised the point that we may lose track of the individual in the midst of IOT, Gilbert countered, “But it’s a control freak’s dream!” Sobel added that IOT “frees up time to do other things” and compared it to the Industrial Revolution.
So it seems that while there are many concerns surrounding IOT, and challenges to its viability, there’s likely no stopping it. In many ways it’s already here; it just needs to be organized into a coherent whole.
Daniel Margolis is manager, communications editor at CompTIA.
