Add to favorites Here CBR outlines five areas of expertise to build the Internet of Things (IoT).
1. Analytics
Real-time analytics is an area to take advantage of, according to Lionel Lamy, VP of European Services Research at IDC.
"Maybe the most crucial part, of the IoT ecosystem. It enables the transformation of data into actionable information, sifting through vast amount of data to find the right info and decide on an action," he explains
Zeus Kerravala, founder and principal analyst at ZK research, has pointed to companies with real-time analytics capabilities such as SAP, Oracle and IBM as potential leaders because of all the information that’s created from sensors "has to be data-crunched full-time by somebody".
"SAP’s harp platform is one of the best analytic platforms out there," he says.
IBM recently teamed up with US carrier AT&T to help cities and utilities analyse large volumes of data by extracting it from meters, cameras and sensors. It also brought to market an IoT Starter Kit last year to ease application development, testing, and scalability of wireless sensor networks, while Oracle released a Java ME Embedded solution.
2. Mobile operators
Mobile phone operators are crucial in the delivery of real-time analytics, says Angela Salmeron, a research manager of Mobile Enterprise Strategies EMEA at IDC.
"And their SLAs and QoS are paramount in the complete offering," she says.
"Although analytics is still in early stages of development in IoT, most leading mobile operators are investing in targeted vertical sectors and partnering with software or solution providers for the provision of data analytics."
Potential players include mobile operators such as Telefonica, Verizon and Orange, depending on the geographic market they’re in.
