Standards will be critical for the emergence of the Internet of Things

New report from Machina Research explores the diversity, importance and impact of IoT standards including initiatives such as HyperCat, OMA LightweightM2M, OneM2M and Weightless.
Machina Research today published its latest report, “Standards for the Internet of Things”. The report examines existing and emerging standards for communications, connectivity, networking, service layers, data abstraction and discoverability.
The key findings are as follows:
While there is today a mess of proprietary and open standards in the IoT, Machina Research expects that open standards will generally dominate.
Growth in the IoT is currently delayed by the existence of multiple competing technologies and platforms. For ‘Subnets of Things' to give way to the Internet of Things requires the emergence of a small number of leading solutions across connectivity and service layers.
The diversity of requirements within the IoT means that there will be no single ‘winner' in terms of wireless standards. Different technologies will be needed in different circumstances.
OneM2M should become the de facto reference framework for interfacing between multiple communications networks, assuming the bureaucracy implicit in standards developments organisations (SDOs) doesn't delay it.
The standards discussion will continue to evolve in the direction of abstraction, semantics, and discoverability. This is particularly evident in the work done by OMA with the LightweightM2M protocol, the Eclipse Foundation, HyperCat and AllJoyn.
Standardisation will take time. We expect that the foreseeable future will be dominated by ‘Subnets of Things' that coalesce around common ownership of data or common cause of data owners.
Commenting on the findings, report author William Webb said:
“Currently, what has been termed the Internet of Things is a jumble of open and proprietary standards, with a lot of vertical and horizontal silos. Realistically, to move from this ‘Internet of Silos' to the Internet of Things is going to require standardisation.”
“The emergence of a small number of leading solutions in the various spaces of local connectivity, wide area connectivity and service or application layer would simplify application development and allow industry to coalesce around a few global standards.”
Matt Hatton, Director at Machina Research commented:“Unpicking the complexity of the standards environment is an important thing for our clients and we're delighted to have pulled together such an extensive study looking at all the key developments.”
Turning to the findings he said:“Clearly the development of standards is going to be critical for the Internet of Things to reach its huge potential. Today the IoT isn't really worthy of the ‘Internet' moniker. Greater standardisation is implicit in evolving from what we've previously termed machine-to-machine (M2M) to a true Internet of Things.”
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Bluetooth Smart Beacons for the IoT

Guest post by Eva Enanoria, LeadingQuest.
When Wi-Fi Alliance introduced Wi-Fi Direct, a wireless network specification that supports a wide array of uses that mostly invade the Bluetooth territory, everyone thought that it was going to be the end of Bluetooth technology. As interesting at it is, the technology found ways to survive and thrive in the ever-changing world of innovation and technology. The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG), a non-profit organization overseeing the development of bluetooth standards, designed a new technology that still has the classics of Bluetooth, but with high speed and low energy protocols.
Bluetooth Low Energy, marketed as Bluetooth Smart, aims to provide a considerably lower power consumption and cost while still maintaining the same communication range as the classic version. The first smartphone that implemented this technology was the iPhone 4S with the iBeacon, an indoor proximity sensor developed by Apple. Beacons have gone a long way from the time that it was first introduced to the market. But the bigger question is what part will the Bluetooth Smart Beacons play in the realization of the Internet of Things.
In over the last twelve months, this Bluetooth Smart Beacons have emerged as a key anchor technology in the retail industry. According to ABI Research's latest report, these devices will play a significant role not just in commercial and retail industries, but also in Connected Homes and Personal Asset Tracking as they feed into the much larger network, the Internet of Things.
“It may surprise many to see that retail is the smallest market covered in the report. In building terms, many stores are relatively small in comparison to a corporate office or hospital, while the items being tracked i.e. consumers, are already BLE-enabled through their smartphones, further limiting the number of beacons required.” ABI senior analyst, Partric Connolly said.
The report highlights that there are several markets that will generate larger volumes of Bluetooth Smart Beacon shipments in the next five years, therefore creating a whopping 60 million unit market. ABI reports that by the end of the year, standalone Bluetooth Smart Beacons will reach an estimated 40% share. At this point, the largest component of the Bluetooth chipset market are smartphones and tablets which covered 62% of shares last year.
ABI Research director, Philip Solis said:“End user products such as smartphones and PCs have been shifting away from standalone solutions for some time now, and smartphones have shifted to integrated platforms with Bluetooth as well.”
“On the other hand, there is a growing long tail of devices around the Internet of Things (IoT) that will gravitate towards standalone Bluetooth in many cases. The end result is that standalone Bluetooth ICs will remain steady in share and grow with the overall market.”
Bluetooth Smart Beacons have become a dominant short-range connectivity solution and has a universal penetration being widely integrated into computing and consumer electronic platforms. And as this market grows, manufacturers and developer have uncovered several other uses of such devices. “We will see silos of beacon networks emerging over the next 5 years, and larger companies like Apple and Google must consider how to aggregate this into a cohesive system, creating new revenue opportunities”, the ABI analyst said.
In addition, Bluetooth SIG predicts that by 2018, over 90% of Bluetooth-enabled mobile devices will be supporting Bluetooth Smart, and will be made compatible with Bluetooth Smart Beacons as it becomes widely used in various IoT applications. With that, the organization has defined several profiles for these low-energy devices. In 2014, a Bluetooth Smart protocol called CSR mesh was published with the purpose of supporting the growth of several sectors in the Internet of Things, particularly proximity sensing for personal and asset tracking, sports and fitness as well as healthcare.
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Airbiquity Deploys European Content Providers On Its Choreo Connected Car Services Delivery Platform

Airbiquity Responds to Driver Demand for Locally-Relevant In-Vehicle Infotainment.
Airbiquity Inc., the global leader in connected car services, today announced the deployment of two best-of-breed content providers to serve the European connected car market, including Eurosport.com, the leading sports news and information provider in Europe, and NAVX, the leading fuel station location, pricing, parking, and EV charge point information provider. Both deployments reflect the growing importance of the connected car market, driver demand for locally relevant in-vehicle infotainment, and the continued regionalization of the Airbiquity smartphone app and cloud content portfolio made available to their automotive OEM customers.
Airbiquity's Choreo connected car services platform provides the latest vehicle connectivity technology, program services, management capabilities, and the ability to easily customize, deploy, and scale connected car programs in 50+ countries and 30+ languages. Airbiquity's Driver Experience solution, which runs on the Choreo platform, enables turnkey infotainment delivery featuring a managed portfolio of popular global and regional smartphone apps, cloud content, and support for basic and premium automotive services if desired.
Airbiquity's integration of the NAVX fuel finder application enables real-time fuel station location and pricing data, one-touch navigation, and helpful calling features allowing drivers to easily locate and contact the nearest preferred fuel station. NAVX also lets drivers assess fuel stations sorted by distance, price, or brand. When a selection is made NAVX automatically activates the vehicle on-board navigation system and efficiently directs drivers to their desired location.
Airbiquity's Eurosport.com integration provides European drivers with the latest news and updates for a wide spectrum of popular sports to European fans, including international coverage of football, tennis, Formula One racing, cycling, rugby, cricket, winter sports, Olympics, and more. Eurosport content is displayed directly on the vehicle head unit and utilizes enhanced text to speech capability to read headlines, news stories, and the latest scores to drivers thereby minimizing distractions and helping to keep their eyes on the road.
“Eurosport.com is Europe's #1 online sports destination with a very loyal user base featuring an average of 20 million unique visitors per month, and NAVX is the de facto regional source for fuel price information,” said David Jumpa, Airbiquity Chief Revenue Officer.
“By partnering with these highly regarded content providers we're able to offer rich, localized connected car infotainment to our automotive OEM customers and their European drivers further solidifying our position as the global leader in connected car solutions.”
Airbiquity's Choreo connected car services delivery platform serves over 4 million vehicles around the world and supports hundreds of millions of vehicle transactions per month for leading automotive OEMs. Driver Experience, Airbiquity's latest product offering, was announced in 2013 and began providing infotainment delivery for Nissan North American Altima and Rogue model lines. Since then Airbiquity's Nissan deployment has gone global and now encompasses nine model lines: Altima, Frontier, Juke, March, Rogue, Sentra, Serena, Versa, and Xterra.
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CSRmesh™ Development Kit Accelerates Internet of Things Product Development

Development Kit Enables Rapid Deployment of Bluetooth

PLAT.ONE, the First Enterprise-Grade Application Platform partners with Telecom Italia Digital Solutions to Drive Connected Industry Solutions

PLAT.ONE to power Telecom Italia's M2M & IoT offering beginning with vending.
ABO Data announces a partnership with Telecom Italia Digital Solutions (TIDS) to develop and deploy Enterprise-Grade solutions for the ‘connected' industry.
This partnership couples TIDS' superior commercial and solution development capabilities with PLAT-ONE's rich library of connected solutions built on the PLAT.ONE Enterprise-Grade application platform. The initial focus of this collaboration is a suite of solutions to provide end-to-end management of vending machines primarily in the food and beverage sector. This solution enables vending operators to track their machines, monitoring operations, collecting and analyzing real-time data and even launching updates remotely. According to market analysts, the numbers of connected devices in the vending industry will top over 3 million globally by 2018.
The two companies will also develop a range of services around specific industrial solutions, ranging from telemetry to remote control and automated diagnostics. PLAT.ONE is already available on Nuvola Italiana (Telecom Italia Cloud) supporting the rapid deployment of Enterprise-Grade connected solutions.
“Telecom Italia's customers have high expectations and have always received best in class solutions. We are very pleased to bring our Enterprise-Grade platform to meet these demands of quality and satisfaction” stated ABO Data CEO Antonio Murroni. “PLAT.ONE's features and functionalities are uniquely suited for such where high-scalability and mission critical reliability are essential.”
“Machine to Machine and Internet of Things solutions will rapidly grow in the near future. Enterprises are willing to integrate these new technologies as part of their core business processes, therefore requiring high quality service levels and future proof scalable and flexible solutions.”
“In this scenario ABO Data's PLAT-ONE Enterprise-Grade solution will enable Telecom Italia Digital Solutions to achieve leadership in the connected-industry market allowing us to be closer to the needs of our customers” stated Luigi Zabatta, Executive Director of the M2M and Internet of Things Services Line of Business within TI Digital Solutions.
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Cubic Telecom secures $5M investment from Qualcomm and Sierra Wireless and launches new funding round to secure additional $15M

Cubic Telecom, the Irish High Tech start-up, has today announced that it has secured a combined $5 million investment from Qualcomm Inc, the world's leading provider of wireless technology and services, and Sierra Wireless, Inc. the global leader in machine-to-machine (M2M) devices and cloud services.
Added to earlier financing rounds, the $5M investment brings the company's total investment to date to $15M. The company is also launching a new funding round to secure a further $15M from potential investors.
Cubic Telecom is a licensed Mobile Network Operator that focuses on providing mobile connectivity solutions for OEMs, M2M devices and some of the world's leading retailers. The company is actively working with some of the world's leading Fortune 100 tablet and notebook manufacturers including HP, Lenovo, Panasonic and others, and more recently it has expanded its business to partner with some of the most innovative M2M and automotive companies in the world.
Cubic Telecom's applications and technologies are embedded into the device at the manufacturing stage, enabling always-on connectivity anywhere in the world. Cubic Telecom is providing the market with smart connectivity solutions, over the air, across all networks, geographies and operating systems.
With this round of financing, Cubic Telecom will continue to invest in its unique software platform and global network, in addition to focusing on expanding its operations across the world to meet the demands and global footprint of its rapidly expanding customer base.
Commenting on the investment, Peggy Johnson, Executive Vice President, Qualcomm said:
“The Internet of Things (IoT), machine-to-machine (M2M), sponsored connectivity and the era of affordable pre-paid service offerings is upon us, and Cubic Telecom provides a robust, ubiquitous, cross-border platform for device and service manufacturers to launch new innovative products.”
“The Qualcomm investment in Cubic is very much in line with our goal of developing the eco-system necessary for these verticals to grow.”
“Cubic Telecom is a leader in providing mobile wireless services to some of Sierra Wireless' top customers, including Lenovo, Panasonic and Tesla Motors,” said Jason Cohenour, CEO, Sierra Wireless. “Our investment will enable Cubic to accelerate the expansion of its global platform, enabling our joint customers to more rapidly adopt cellular wireless connectivity for both Enterprise and IoT applications.”
Barry Napier, CEO, Cubic Telecom said:“This investment, coming from two of the world's leading technology organisations, is a testament to the fact that we're following the right strategy and have the right technology. An open platform providing connectivity across all networks, geographies and operating systems is at the top of all OEMs agenda. The Cubic Telecom platform delivers on this and has been tailored with direct input from our customers, investors and partners. The platform technology provides a means for our customers to establish a continuous, post-sale relationship with their customers while generating brand loyalty and more crucially, sustainable incremental revenue streams”.
He went on to say: “This round of investment will enable us to continue to expand to meet current and future demands of our global customers”.
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Essence’s WeR@Home Wins European Consumers Choice for 2014

29July 2014 - Essence, a leading provider of home automation solutions today announced that its  Smart Living - WeR@Home solution has been awarded the European Consumers Choice Award for 2014.

European Consumers Choice is an independent non-profit organization developed to reward companies for ingenuity of product design, innovation and ease of use.

"The results were quite impressive; we actually tested six alarm systems in the past year, and none received an award," said Maximilien Lejeune, Executive Director, European Consumers Choice. "Products are tested under normal conditions by regular European consumers and graded according to three categories: WeR@Home™ was rated 9.8 for ease of use, which almost never happens, 9.5 for innovation, and 8.8 for design, a global rating of 9.4, easily the highest score in its category."

The WeR@Home™ product suite offers a seamless connected-living experience that enables people to independently manage their home environments from anywhere, anytime, and on any screen. The modular offering includes security, safety, and home management capabilities. Z-wave compatible, cloud based and integrating the latest technology, WeR@Home lets consumers manage more than 1,000 devices and applications including door locks, switches, dimmers, and thermostats.

"WeR@Home™ was designed and developed at the highest standards of quality and reliability," said Dr. Haim Amir, founder & CEO of Essence. "Throughout the development as a standalone smart home offering we followed our Essence principles for superb customer experience, innovation, true DIY, and contemporary design. The European Consumers Choice Award is particularly important for us as our product was tested by regular people, who gave our system a 9.8 for ease of use, validating our superb yet simple customer experience and design. This is a practical demonstration of how the IoT promise can be brought into everyone's homes via innovative and complex technologies yet simple customer experiences to enable a better life."

About Essence
Essence is a global M2M provider of scalable, end-to-end connected-living solutions for security, communication, and healthcare service providers. The company specialises in cloud-based machine to machine (M2M) and Internet of things ( IoT) connected-living technologies, such as professional home security, smart home and smart care solutions.

Over the past 20 years, Essence has built an impressive installed base, with more than 10 million products deployed and used by Tier-1 service providers worldwide.

Essence is committed to developing and supporting solutions that both enhance partners' businesses and enable people to live fuller and better lives.

Source: Essence

Ericsson Acquires MetraTech to Accelerate Cloud, Enterprise Billing and IOT Capabilities

29 July 2014 - Ericsson (NASDAQ:ERIC) today announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire US-based MetraTech Corp., a provider of metadata-based billing, commerce and settlement solutions uniquely adaptable to multiple business models and industries.

The acquisition includes all 140 employees and contractors comprising a team of highly-skilled software experts. It will further build upon Ericsson’s expertise in billing and expands its geographic presence in the US.

The acquisition addresses unique requirements in support of the new revenue models and global commerce that are being driven by IoT and XaaS business models. Ericsson will gain capabilities to support customers, partners and suppliers in multiple industries and accelerate the creation and delivery of new value-added services. Customers can create fluid, personalized, multi-party agreements to meet unique business needs. This is especially valuable for industries undergoing technology or business model transformation.

Per Borgklint, Senior Vice President and Head of Business Unit Support Solutions, Ericsson says: “For a range of industries, thriving in the Networked Society means having the ability to quickly support new revenue models and shift strategies as fast as customer and partner needs evolve. MetraTech’s metadata-based billing solutions strengthen our extensive OSS and BSS portfolio and billing capabilities across a range of sectors, helping us extend our leadership as we support a world with increasingly more connections.”

Scott Swartz, founder and CEO of MetraTech, says: "From its founding, MetraTech has leveraged an industry-agnostic, metadata-driven platform to enable innovative monetization of products and services across a diverse customer base. Ericsson’s comprehensive portfolio and services, reach and Networked Society vision perfectly complements our vision of enabling customers across industries to transform their business. We are eager to accelerate MetraTech’s breakthrough work as part of Ericsson to drive further uptake of our innovative monetization solutions.”

About MetraTech
MetraTech was founded in 1998 and is headquartered in Boston in the US. The company accelerates commerce by providing an unlimited ability for customers to innovate how financial relationships are created, structured and managed. It supports a broad customer base of leading companies from a range of industries in 150 countries, 36 languages and 28 currencies. The company has 140 employees and contractors.

The acquisition is expected to close before the end of the third quarter 2014, subject to customary closing conditions.

About Ericsson
Ericsson is the driving force behind the Networked Society – a world leader in communications technology and services. Its long-term relationships with every major telecom operator in the world allow people, business and society to fulfill their potential and create a more sustainable future.

Its services, software and infrastructure – especially in mobility, broadband and the cloud – are enabling the telecom industry and other sectors to do better business, increase efficiency, improve the user experience and capture new opportunities.

With more than 110,000 professionals and customers in 180 countries, Ericsson combines global scale with technology and services leadership. Ericsson supports networks that connect more than 2.5 billion subscribers. Forty percent of the world’s mobile traffic is carried over Ericsson networks.

Founded in 1876, Ericsson has its headquarters in Stockholm, Sweden. Net sales in 2013 were SEK 227.4 billion (USD 34.9 billion). Ericsson is listed on NASDAQ OMX stock exchange in Stockholm and the NASDAQ in New York.

Source: Ericsson

ABO Data Partners with Telecom Italia to Drive Connected Industry Solutions

28 July 2014  ABO Data announced today a partnership with Telecom Italia Digital Solutions (TIDS) to develop and deploy Enterprise-Grade solutions for the ‘connected’ industry.

This partnership couples TIDS’ superior commercial and solution development capabilities with PLAT-ONE’s rich library of connected solutions built on the PLAT.ONE Enterprise-Grade application platform. The initial focus of this collaboration is a suite of solutions to provide end-to-end management of vending machines primarily in the food and beverage sector. This solution enables vending operators to track their machines, monitoring operations, collecting and analyzing real-time data and even launching updates remotely. According to market analysts, the numbers of connected devices in the vending industry will top over 3 million globally by 2018.

The two companies will also develop a range of services around specific industrial solutions, ranging from telemetry to remote control and automated diagnostics. PLAT.ONE is already available on Nuvola Italiana (Telecom Italia Cloud) supporting the rapid deployment of Enterprise-Grade connected solutions.

“Telecom Italia’s customers have high expectations and have always received best in class solutions. We are very pleased to bring our Enterprise-Grade platform to meet these demands of quality and satisfaction” stated ABO Data CEO Antonio Murroni. “PLAT.ONE’s features and functionalities are uniquely suited  where high-scalability and mission critical reliability are essential.”

“Machine to Machine and Internet of Things solutions will rapidly grow in the near future. Enterprises are willing to integrate these new technologies as part of their core business processes and therefore require high quality service levels and future proof scalable and flexible solutions. In this scenario ABO Data’s PLAT-ONE Enterprise-Grade solution will enable Telecom Italia Digital Solutions to achieve leadership in the connected-industry market allowing us to be closer to the needs of our customers” stated Luigi Zabatta, Executive Director of the M2M and Internet of Things Services Line of Business within TI Digital Solutions.

About Telecom Italia Digital Solutions
Telecom Italia Digital Solutions (TIDS) is a leading company of the Telecom Italia Group created on 1st of June 2013 with the purpose of playing a crucial role in the digital transformation of the customers’ business. It is an ambitious project whose aim is generating creativeness streams and developing new businesses based on the continuous technology improvements, in strong cooperation with the capabilities and skills of the Telecom Italia Business Division. TIDS brings in the leadership and experience acquired by the Telecom Italia Group and applies it to every aspect of digital innovation such as Machine- to-Machine (M2M) and Internet of Things (IoT) solutions.

About ABO Data
ABO Data is a developer of enterprise-grade software and produces PLAT.ONE, an enterprise-grade Internet of Things Application Platform.  PLAT.ONE’s distributed architecture, integrated development and deployment features, and native security and data-aware operations reduce application development time while providing Enterprise-Grade, non-stop operations. Businesses use PLAT.ONE to deploy innovative connected solutions ranging from smart equipment and transportation to smart cities and manufacturing. For more information, please visit http://platone.io or follow us on Twitter at @PlatOneIOT.

Source: ABO Data

Wearable Tech Needs Fashion Collaboration and Business Model Revamp

Image source: static.dezeen.com
Guest post by Eva Enanoria.
While it is true that wearables have created such a buzz these days with new electronic wristbands, health monitors and smartwatches emerging in the market every so often, and with giant tech companies such as Google, Samsung and Apple, leading the battle for the best wearable electronic device in town, there is no question. Yes, wearable technology is indeed the most exciting trend in the technology market today!
Statista.com forecasts that wearable devices will reach a market value of $12.6 billion in 2018, and is expected to include Google Glass products and Apple's most anticipated addition to its line of cutting edge products, the iWatch. Beecham Research, IDTechEx, IHS and other research firms seem to agree with this forecast. Beecham Reseach expects the market's worth to reach $3 billion by 2018, however, believes that the market has the potential to grow even bigger with a multidisciplinary approach and greater collaboration. Meanwhile, IHS expected sales of health, sports and fitness wearables to reach $2.8 billion in 2019, and the total base of these wearable devices will swell up to 120 million.
Nonetheless, analysts say that wearable technology, as popular as it is right now, failed to achieve its full potential. And unless developers and vendors learn to address its major challenges, it may never be able to establish itself as something more than just a piece of technology that can fade with its novelties. According to Beecham Research's principal analyst, Saverio Romeo:“Too many technology-led companies see wearable devices as simply the next wave of smartphones or accessories and pay lip service to aesthetics and style. Current market forecasts are based on a smartphone-centric view of wearable technology. But while these devices may have some smartphone functionality, they will be much more than smartphones.”
Beecham's fashion technology analyst, Claire Duke-Woolley added that:
“There is a real difference between making technology wearable, versus making technology products that are desirable and genuinely engage with consumers through good design practice. It's time for the fashion industry to embrace technology and for tech companies to realize that they can't do it on their own and need the knowledge and influence of major fashion brands.”
Integration of fashion and technology indeed needs to avoid compromising aesthetics an functionality. Although, the fashion industry is now slowly adopting new concepts for clothes that will not just look good on them, but also allows them to communicate and do more. Take for instance, the emergence of smart fabric technology market where smart textile become recognized. Products such as traceable clothing and solar powered cycling jackets that let users charge mobile phones with it. However, cutting edge wearable devices may also need to be fashionable to appeal to a wider audience. The fashion industry dictates how people should look. Undeniably, it also has power over consumers' spending habits and can greatly influence what appeals to the consumers.
Jack Kent of IHS, expressed similar thoughts about addressing challenges in the wearable technology market, when he said that “Wearable apps provide new opportunities, but business models must evolve”. Kent further noted that health and fitness as well as notification services are apparently pulling the most interest from consumers. However, many apps in the market remain too focused on traditional and single user-pay models. There is a need to find other means to sustain revenues from users, which can be done through subscription and service-based models, according to Kent in his report, The New Economics of Mobile Media: Strategies for Mobile and Wearable Apps.
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