IoT moving from the connectivity phase to integration and optimisation phase, according to analyst
The worldwide market for IoT hardware, software and service could hit $100 billion (£70 billion) by 2020, according to analysts.
Speaking at the IoT Tech Expo in London today, Stuart Carlaw, managing partner at analyst firm ABI Research, said that the IoT market would change from being one in a “connectivity phase” to an “integration and optimisation phase” and this would also occur around 2020.
He said that this next phase would be interesting as we go from “connecting people, products, processes and systems” to one where IoT is so well integrated that information can be “shared across the whole supply chain”.
In this phase, Carlaw envisioned a scenario where a shop could “ship directly to the customer a set of highly customised products, such as trainers.”
Carlaw also said that there would be a shift in revenues between now and 2020 from professional services around IoT to data and analytics. “There will be a shift from human intensive to machine intensive revenues.”
That meant that by 2020 areas such as smart meters and analytics were a “real opportunity” for players in this new market.
Carlaw then reveals details of a survey carried out by ABI Research that show that most respondents were in an investigative stage of an IoT project.
Issues that were holding back such projects, according to the survey were a lack of champions for IoT end users and product among C-level executives and concerns of the “plumbing” of IoT.
He said there was a disparity between the emphasis on security between the device manufacturers and their customers; with customers being more concerned about security than manufacturers. He added that there should be “work on alignment between the two sides to drive the industry forward”.
He said that as connected devices collected large amounts of data to form so-called “data lakes” the security of these would also be an issue.
Carlaw called on the industry and end users to make security a “part of the data landscape”.
In a panel discussion afterward, David Drai, CEO of Anodot, said data was a major privacy and security concern for IoT.
“You need to segment data and encrypt data. In some cases, data has to stay in a particular county. Others, data has to stay on-premise,” he said.
“It is important for end user that data is not to be exposed and for the industry to protect this information on behalf of the customer,” he added.