Internet of Things: A Vision of True Interconnectedness

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a world where vast numbers of objects are tagged in a way that will enable them to be managed, inventoried, queried and controlled. For example, items are now being tagged with technologies like RFID, near-field communication, barcodes, QR codes and digital watermarks. But we’re also increasingly embedding computers in a wide range of devices that will allow remote monitoring of those devices — anything from smart meters to refrigerators and coffee machines.

Rohit Mehra, IDC’s VP of network infrastructure, said that “you want to look at the Internet of things as one big continuum. In addition to devices, the framework includes applications and the required connectivity, and applications are becoming more complex as they become distributed and interdependent. Data in one data center will depend on data in another data center. Intelligence is going to be the real Internet of things.”

IDC expects the market for IoT technologies to grow at a rate of about 8 percent annually through 2020, when the market size for the technology will reach nearly $9 trillion. IDC envisions a world in 2020 where there will be nearly 212 billion items interconnected in the web of things, and of these, 30.1 billion will be what IDC calls ‘connected autonomous’ things. These autonomous things will be monitored and used for collecting data for use in both consumer and enterprise applications.

Carrie MacGillivray, Program Vice President, Mobile Services, M2M & Network Infrastructure, said that “it is important to remember that while the market for the Internet of Things is still in its infancy, there is a long legacy of autonomous wired connected things. The enabler for increased growth over the forecast period is the pervasiveness of wireless connectivity and ubiquitous access to the Internet regardless of location.”

Development of IoT technology is expected to be particularly disruptive to many existing industries. Vernon Turner, Senior Vice President of IDC, said that “the momentum of the Internet of Things is driven by a number of factors. There is no doubt that business and consumer demand exists and will continue to expand for IoT solutions. I expect the current IoT use cases are just the tip of the iceberg.”

IDC notes that challenges IoT technology will face include a current lack of standards, difficulty in scaling a solution globally, and a “nascent ecosystem for application development”.