Love it or hate it, the term Internet of Things — IoT, if you prefer — is here to stay. At least for the foreseeable future, these interactive machine-to-machine technologies and solutions will gain momentum, press and social media buzz. But it’s not the just cool factor driving IoT. Legitimate, new business cases are coming online every day; from small home applications to increasing larger industrial systems that create a more than acceptable return on investment.
Before there were any real-world examples to satisfy our curiosity, the Internet of Things was already one of the most hyped topics in the industry. Understandably, many solution providers continue to remain skeptical of its value to their clients and, until they see the real dollars and cents, that’s not likely to change. With Gartner Research predicting 26 billion IoT-connected devices by 2020, the channel will surely get its fair share of the pie. But what will that be and how can solution providers prepare themselves for the opportunities?
That’s exactly what a panel of industry professionals discussed during the recent CompTIA Annual Member Meeting. Charlene O’Hanlon, senior executive editor and director of content for The VAR Guy, led the session with some of the latest examples of IoT usage, including applications for:
- Agriculture Technologies include monitoring soil moisture and automatically providing just the right amount of water where and when it’s necessary.
- Utilities IoT is monitoring energy usage to ensure an adequate amount of power is being generated.
- Transportation Bridges, railroad tracks and other types of transportation infrastructure are being monitored for events or conditions that can compromise safety.
- Retail IoT is being used to monitor shopper activity, like the amount of time spent in the store and shopping patterns.
- Healthcare The technologies are being used to monitor pacemakers and alert healthcare professionals when medical devices are about to fail or are having performance issues.
Make Money Today on Tomorrow’s Technologies
Now that actual working solutions are finally coming out of the shadows, it’s time to do what the channel does best: Tone down the rhetoric and focus on customers. After laying the groundwork with industry research and real world applications, O’Hanlon brought three other subject matter experts to the stage to discuss the challenges and opportunities IoT: Frank Raimondi, worldwide channel alliance manager for Intel; Dave Sobel, director of partner community for LogicNow; and Tim Herbert, vice president of research and market intelligence for CompTIA.
Herbert pointed out that channel opportunities for the Internet of Things may start in an unlikely place. “A lot of SMBs will adopt consumer-focused IoT. Some emerging technologies take time to develop and customers won’t always wait for them to mature, so providers need to watch the trends and stay focused on their clients’ actions,” he said. “It may be a nice niche for providers to work with these new vendor companies, even though the real mainstream adoption is probably at least two years away.”
Raimondi was also quite optimistic about the opportunities for solution providers now as well as in the future. “There is already a good channel play for those who are willing to experiment. If you have all the pieces that need connectivity now, the opportunity is real since it’s basically an evolution from the current environment,” Raimondi said. “When you integrate IoT into your existing solutions, it will act as a gateway to future IoT applications.”
Sobel continued the optimistic outlook for these new technologies. “We’re catching IoT right as it’s getting interesting. As technologists, we like to categorize things and put them in tidy buckets but these systems are all linked. What really matters is that providers build solutions from the technologies they have available and there’s a whole specialty here for them to dig into, including monitoring and network opportunities,” Sobel said. “They can choose to wait for standards to develop or get innovative now. What you have to ask is what can you construct that will help your clients now?”
That’s the crux of the panel conversation. IoT applications are available now for those willing to invest in a ground floor opportunity. Yes, there is risk with any new technology, but as the old saying goes, there’s margin in the mystery.
Brian Sherman is principal consultant at Tech Success Communications, an IT channel business development and marketing firm. He served previously as chief editor at Business Solutions magazine and senior director of industry alliances with Autotask. Contact Brian at Bsherman@techsuccesscommunications.com.
