The Growth of The Internet of Things

The Internet of Things has been growing into the technology sector and becoming the latest hot topic. Recently I read two interesting articles about the growth of the Internet of Things. Vala Afshar published a good article in The Huffington Post, explaining in detail what is the Internet of Things, what are their consequences, challenges, opportunities and concerns. Defining the Internet of Things (IoT): simply a concept wherein machines and everyday objects are connected via the Internet. Within the IoT, devices are controlled and monitored remotely and usually wirelessly. Afshar published slides with 40 IoT solutions:

According the article, the growth of Internet of Things opens up opportunities for businesses and people with the right skills. These skills include network design, data analysis, data security, and engineering. Mckinsey projects the need for 1.5 million additional managers and analysts "with a sharp understanding of how big data can be applied" in the United States. Gartner has predicted there will be 4.4 million global big data jobs by 2015, only one-third of which will be filled.

IDC predicts that the IoT will include 212 billion things globally by the end of 2020. IDC's Vernon Turner said: "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". Some enablers to the rise of IoT include:

. Ongoing development of smart cities, cars, and houses
. Enhanced connectivity infrastructure
. An increasingly connected culture.

Gil Press also published a good article in Forbes entitled: It's Official: The Internet Of Things Takes Over Big Data As The Most Hyped Technology. He mentioned that Gartner recently released its latest Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies. The Internet of Things, says Gartner, “is becoming a vibrant part of our, our customers’ and our partners’ business and IT landscape.”

Source: Gartner, August 2014

In its Hype Cycle Special Report Gartner says that “While interest in big data remains undiminished, it has moved beyond the peak because the market has settled into a reasonable set of approaches, and the new technologies and practices are additive to existing solutions.”

BI: one of fastest-growing cloud SaaS solutions

The Business Intelligence is one of the kind of applications with a greater growth potential to move into the cloud-based computing, according a new study, from research company IDC, entitled Worldwide Business Analytics Software-as-a-Service Forecast, 2008-2013. Search CIO published today an article commenting about this study. The study finds that the number of business analytics SaaS users will grow rapidly from a small base, however market revenue will remain low relative to on-premise software throughout the forecast period. According the study, over the next five years, the business analytics software-as-a service (SaaS) market will grow more than three times as fast as the total business analytics software market with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 22.4% through 2013.

According the SearchCIO's article, of all the apps moving into the cloud - email, customer relationship management, disaster recovery (DR) and so forth - BI is the one causing the most commotion. That's because traditional BI vendors got too comfy with their six-digit contracts and forgot to innovate, experts say. Meanwhile, upstart BI SaaS solution vendors are coming out with on-demand services that combine BI with data integration. The article mentions several examples of companies that are using BI SaaS solutions.

The article also mentions another recent IDC study: Improving Organizational Decision-Making Through Pervasive Business Intelligence: The Five Key Factors That Lead to Business Intelligence Diffusion. According this study, the evidence of the competitive value of business intelligence and analytics solutions is growing. Business intelligence, data warehousing, and analytic application, collectively business analytics, technology and processes are being deployed to support decision-making. The study included in-depth interviews with 22 companies and a survey of more than 1,100 additional organizations in 11 countries. It found that making BI available throughout an organization means much more than distributing reports to all stakeholders. In some cases, BI solutions are deployed to automate an existing way of making decisions; in others, BI solutions are deployed to change the way decisions are made - on the basis of fact, rather than opinion.

Improving Organizational Performance Management Through Pervasive Business Intelligence

The IDC published a good white paper entitled Improving Organizational Performance Management Through Pervasive Business Intelligence, sponsored by SAP Business Objects. The white paper considers that the evidence of the competitive value of business intelligence (BI) and analytics solutions is growing, and the fact-based decision making is spreading throughout all organizations.

They identified five key factors that have the strongest influence on BI pervasiveness:

1 - Degree of training on the data, tools, and analytic techniques
2 - Design quality of the BI solution
3 - Prominence of data governance
4 - Non executive involvement in promoting the design and use of BI solutions
5 - Prominence of a performance management methodology

They also identified six pervasive BI indicators:

1 - Degree of internal use
2 - Degree of external use
3 - Percentage of power users
4 - Numbers of domains
5 - Data update frequency
6 - Analytical orientation

They defined a model with the relationship between the six pervasive BI indicators (dependent variables) and the five key factors leading to pervasive BI (independent variables).

The white paper can be downloaded, with free registration required.

In my opinion, Business Intelligence and Performance Management are critical during this time of tight economy, and increasingly important the companies to use BI and PM to make better decisions. In general, the organizations that are investing in BI and PM have a positive impact on their business performance.

IDC Predictions 2009

IDC published today its Predictions for 2009, called IDC Predictions 2009: An Economic Pressure Cooker Will Accelerate the IT Industry Transformation.

The ten predictions, according IDC document: "In 2009, two powerful forces will collide in the IT market: a deep global recession, and a radical IT industry transformation that has been in progress for the past several years. These two forces, interacting with each other, loom large in virtually all of our 10 predictions themes for 2009:

1 - Global IT growth will be cut in half — it will be critically important for suppliers to orient toward segments that are spending at above-market growth rates.
2 - Emerging markets and small businesses spending will slow significantly — but outperform the market even more than in 2008.
3 - The IT industry's expansion to "the cloud" will accelerate — as the bad economy drives more users to the cloud model's low costs, and IT suppliers follow suit.
4 - The struggling offline economy will drive more shoppers to the online economy — as over 1.5 billion people go online, driving over $8 trillion in online sales.
5 - The telecom industry will consolidate, and expand, in 2009 — driven by the need for scale in developed markets, a wireless land-grab in emerging markets, and the promise of the cloud model to greatly expand telcos' value-added services.
6 - It will be a grim year for mobile gadgets — as volume growth flattens in mobile phones, as netbook PCs expand the market but threaten notebook pricing and margins, and as consolidation looms in personal navigation devices.
7 - The crumbling of the "business/personal" wall in IT will accelerate — as the economy and the "2.0" culture drive consumer and business technology together, opening new opportunities and threatening to create new IT industry dinosaurs.
8 - The reinvention of information access and analysis will accelerate in 2009 — driven by blow-back from the financial industry fiasco, the growing information avalanche from social networking and digital video, and the ambitions of key vendors to own the last — and most strategic — patch of IT market real estate.
9 - Green technologies will have a good year, disguised as "cost cutting" — with good demand for green tech that can deliver near-term savings, but temporarily shoving capital-intensive green investments down the agenda.
10 - Government initiatives in 2009 will catalyze massive IT investments and industry growth — focused on economic recovery, energy and health industry streamlining, and improving financial markets' stability and transparency."

You can donwload the IDC document (registration required) and also watch a video with Frank Gens, IDC Chief Analyst.

This is an interesting list. In my opinion, about the two powerful forces, the IT industry is shifting quickly, but I hope the global recession is not so deep.