Internet of Things: Opportunity and confusion

TBR believes the Internet of Things (IoT) will add more than $1.5 billion to IT industry revenues by 2018, with most of that revenue stemming from enterprise adoption. Although consumer IoT solutions such as wearables and home automation have gained attention for the concept, TBR believes the primary IoT opportunity is with businesses seeking to reduce costs and increase productivity in their core organizational processes.

Industrial IoT solutions, specific to each customer and/or use case, present customers opportunities to transform businesses by gaining better visibility into and improved decision making around supply chain, operations and customer behavior. IT vendors will be presented with the opportunities and challenges of evolving, marketing and selling their IT solutions into emerging IoT markets.

On Wednesday, April 22, 2015, TBR Principal Analyst Ezra Gottheil hosted a webinar, which assessed the market situation of the IoT, recent IoT announcements and introductions and their implications, and key vendors in cross-solution IoT products and services. He then fielded questions from the audience.

Questions for discussion included:

● What is the role of existing IT products and services in IoT solutions?
● What kinds of companies will interface with customers and drive use of IoT, and what kinds of partners will they need?
● How can IT vendors best participate in vertical IoT solutions?