by Gary Mintchell | Nov 20, 2012 | M2M
Call it Machine-to-Machine (M2M), Internet of Things (IoT) or Pervasive Internet, the time is coming when most “things” will be interconnected. It will not take a person and a browser. We will have thing-to-thing communication. Then humans will tap into the data–or more likely analytics or “intelligence” from the data–for use in understanding or controlling processes.
I have touched on the phenomenon at times. Lately on this blog regarding some new ideas. I also asked my friend Jim Pinto for his thoughts for columns in Automation World which he did in October and in November.
Last week I noticed an article in GigaOm by John Horn who is president of RACO Wireless. He proposed two things that could doom this whole Internet of Things movement.
The first is complexity. “Right now, large enterprise M2M projects still often take up to three years to complete, and typically require at least a $25 million investment, according to the research firm Maravedis-Rethink. It’s a big reason that M2M adoption for many businesses is still in a semi-holding pattern, with few committed to building it into their business plans.”
Isn’t that often a problem with automation in general. If we are not careful, the complexity of the technology scares off management. A significant trend I’ve noticed over the past five years is making automation solutions easier to implement. So, I think over the next few years that we’ll see engineers tackle this problem.
Horn’s second situation is the sunsetting of 2G networks. “Unfortunately, simplicity isn’t the only thing holding back the growth of M2M right now. In fact, the very future of some M2M applications is being challenged, thanks to the mobile industry’s migration to 3G and 4G networks. In the process many are simply shutting down their existing 2G networks, stranding customers who have M2M applications that rely on them. I recently heard of a small boutique in the Midwest that relies on a 2G network to process credit-card payments. Without notice, its 2G cellular service was shut off and suddenly the shop’s point of sale device was non-functional, leaving a vulnerable small business scrambling to find options.”
The first M2M applications I heard about–and this goes back 10 or 11 years–was all about cellular as the broadband. In fact, it was cellular companies themselves pushing the idea. They needed a new market, they thought. (Of course, then came smart phones, so data requirements grew quickly.) One problem is that the typical sensor-to-sensor or machine-to-machine communication involves only a little data. So, first, I think the cellular companies will chase the larger consumer smart phone data market. But everyone who has implemented 2G systems are looking at upgrade–and that’s never fun. That alone may force manufacturing proponents to look for alternative broadband technologies to cellular.
I think the Internet of Things is here to stay and will continue to grow. We have many reasons to continue to develop automated data communications from our many sensors, controllers and other devices. But it will be like everything–the actual technologies used will continue to morph.
by Gary Mintchell | Jan 8, 2012 | M2M
In other news, I’ve been watching startup ThingWorx. Software entrepreneurs Russ Fadel and Rick Bullotta (Lighthammer) have started what they call “the first application platform for the connected world”. It has been growing steadily—partnering with a rapidly expanding list of customers in the M2M, manufacturing, healthcare, energy, Smart Grid and Infrastructure, and printing industries to realize operational innovation through its Connected Application platform. To meet this rapid growth, the company has announced several key additions to the staff as it builds the growing ThingWorx community.
Since the start of 2011, ThingWorx increased its staff by 300 percent, as it has successfully transitioned from a focused set of “lighthouse” customers to a broader market engagement model. The company attributes accelerated customer adoption to the ThingWorx platform’s development efficiency, which reduces application development time by 5X for customers looking to build applications that connect their business processes to the physical world.
“Companies in every industry are looking for ways to accelerate solution development, respond to rapidly changing operational requirements, and to leverage the value in connecting smart equipment into their business processes,” says Russ Fadel, CEO of ThingWorx. “ThingWorx is unique in its ability to increase solution deployment velocity up to five times and in its search-based collective intelligence engine, which empowers business users to solve problems on their own. Our recent expansion includes staff with specific expertise in developing and supporting a platform that meets the specific needs of the connected world, and we’ve been aggressively recruiting talent to make sure that we continue to expand our first mover advantage.”
Significant hires include the addition of a development team based in Southern California. Led by Phil Huber, the software architect who co-founded the Wonderware industrial software business, with key team members including Lawrence Fan, Samuel Malapas, and Brandon Hahr. The ThingWorx Southern California operation adds significant experience in all aspects of user experience, user interface design, and mobile applications for the iOS and Android platforms.
“As we look into 2012, our talent acquisitions will support our new and growing customer base as they test, develop, and deploy the ThingWorx platform,” continued Fadel. “The new members to our team will be instrumental in the success of our short and long term plans. We’re in a great position to capitalize on the shift to a completely connected world.”
Mike McFarlin also joins ThingWorx as a Southeast Regional Sales Manager through this expansion. Previously, he served as Senior Account Manager at SAP and Southeast Regional Manager at Lighthammer Software. Mr. McFarlin’s responsibilities at ThingWorx will include the fostering of ThingWorx’s OEM and VAR ecosystem, in addition to growing sales through direct accounts.
ThingWorx also expanded its training and customer relations capacity by adding new staff led by Pai Chung. Chung, who joins ThingWorx from a successful enterprise software company, brings valuable experience in building highly effective customer training and support operations and will manage the expansion of the ThingWorx community website.
by Gary Mintchell | Mar 24, 2010 | M2M
M2M, or machine-to-machine, markets have been poised for a takeoff for years. The concept was introduced to me as a way to automatically send information from device to client computing device using cellular technology as the broadband. Cell telephone operators saw this as a way to sell more bandwidth. Connectivity companies saw it as an opportunity to connect the “Internet of Things.” Only a few companies have persisted in this particular vision. One is Axeda, which has evolved from HMI/SCADA supplier to M2M platform supplier.
The company has been busy the past week, releasing three announcements–two about connections to the mobile broadband. The first is an agreement between Axeda and Sprint. I’ve read the press release four times, and can’t figure out exactly what they’ve agreed to. Evidently it’s a collaboration for Axeda customers to gain access to Sprint’s network.
The second release was similar to the first, announcing an agreement between Axeda and Telenor Connexion, said to be the world’s sixth largest mobile system operator. Once again, Axeda M2M customers can now take advantage of the Telenor network.
The last release announced an alliance between Axeda and Integron Inc.–a supplier of supply chain and logistics services.
Perhaps the sudden flurry of releases reflects a new growth spurt for the segment. The dream of connecting every device to the Internet via cellular broadband is far from reality, but practical advances are allowing a few companies to make a living–and that’s not all bad.
by Gary Mintchell | Aug 26, 2009 | M2M
I saw this on the GigaOm network about Qualcomm and Verizon forming a company to be called nPhase. Actually Qualcomm bought a company in the M2M (machine-to-machine) space in 2006 called nPhase. Prior to that purchase, I used to have regular communications with Steve Pazol, nPhase president about what M2M meant. The origin of the term in our space meant using cellular networks as a broadband for automatic communications from one machine to another–say a remote machine calling its creator with news or problems. This was promoted by cell phone manufacturers looking for new markets for their boards and service providers hoping to sell lots of unused bandwidth.
It never took off. Think about how reliable your cell phone connectivity was in the early part of this century–OK, just a few years ago. It’s better now, but still not greatly reliable. Think of the expense of cell phone minutes versus WiFi connected eventually to the Internet.
I continue to look at cellular technology as just one little piece of a broader M2M (actually, the founder and editor of a magazine devoted to the space just lamented the demise of the name) that can use any one of a number of connectivity options. Smart phones, by the way, are actually driving up WiFi usage–not what the Verizons of the world wanted. If WiMax comes to the US, that would be another cell challenge. But I hope Steve, who remains as head of this new entity, is able to carve out a market there. Connectivity is a good thing.
