In the last section, we went through the history of IoT. In this section, we will take a brief look at the IoT market and reports published by Gartner and Forbes.
IoT is identified as one of the key emerging technologies and is currently in the Peak of Inflated Expectations phase, as per Gartner (July 2017): https://blogs.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/files/2017/08/Emerging-Technology-Hype-Cycle-for-2017_Infographic_R6A.jpg and https://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/top-trends-in-the-gartner-hype-cycle-for-emerging-technologies-2017/.
Given the report, one can only imagine how this technology could evolve into a market, where a world of connected things leads to intelligent things.
Take a look at the Gartner Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends 2018: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPbKyD2bAR4. David W. Cearley, VP and Gartner Fellow, Gartner research explains how intelligent devices are key items in emerging technology trends in 2018 and how they are going to impact overall growth in the next 5 years.
Here is an interesting article published on Forbes by Louis Columbus, titled 2017 Roundup Of Internet Of Things Forecasts: https://www.forbes.com/sites/louiscolumbus/2017/12/10/2017-roundup-of-internet-of-things-forecasts. It provides some really encouraging facts about the growth and market for IoT.
The numbers mentioned in the article look quite promising for people or organizations that want to get into the world of Internet of Things, either by building it or supporting it.
In another article published by Louis Columbus, titled The Era Of Integrated IoT Has Arrived In The Enterprise: https://www.forbes.com/sites/louiscolumbus/2017/09/29/the-era-of-integrated-iot-has-arrived-in-the-enterprise), Louis Columbus talks about the adoption of IoT in enterprises.
You can read more Vodafone fifth annual IoT Barometer report in the previous URL.
Here is an interesting take from my dear friend on IoT and enterprises:
The reason behind most of the initiatives not picking up is that we have been using a conventional approach to research and development, which leads most of IoT products to a finish where they become a product, which is costlier than it's worth. Current methods of user or market segmentation are the real bottlenecks. On the other hand, we have products being developed for enterprises and big firms.
Enterprises and firms do not have affordability issues so there is undoubtedly a better chance of making good profit; plus it can help produce a blueprint of how the B2C market can be targeted.
Currently, I see a trend in IoT initiatives targeted towards enterprise solutions. Well-funded companies and software giants have talented teams rigorously working on developing products, making prototypes, and improvising. But their development process has been more component driven than consumer needs driven, with development teams doing iterations of prototyping, fusing more and more sensors, and then drawing the hypothesis for consumer usage.
It's not that the approach is wrong but somehow there is a better approach required.
The concept of IoT is in a gestation period and could take about a decade to be fully established in a developing country like India. Were we to have the right research methodologies developed, internet connectivity spanned across corners of consumer-dense countries, and precise market segmentation, that would be the time when real competitive environments would be developed and the usefulness of the IoT products would be tremendous.
As we can see , the market is huge; there is a lot of potential in terms of opportunities and revenue.
The way I look at it is that all existing enterprise clients are getting into the world of IoT in one way or another. And this is where I see a lot of potential for proposing IoT solutions to clients to make the process, as well as systems, more intelligent and smart with the help of IoT.
With this, we conclude this section on IoT and the market.