The Internet of Things gets real

Practical applications are emerging for connected devices in key industries

A year ago, people were mostly talking about the potential of the Internet of Things (IoT) — what companies and government entities might do in the future to take advantage of this widespread network of connected objects.

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While we’re still in the early stages of IoT, today it’s looking like more of a reality, with a number of implementations in the works. And while many issues still need to be sorted out — data security and privacy for one — a growing number of companies are exploring how they can leverage IoT-related technologies.

IoT is clearly on a growth curve. A March 2014 Gartner report estimates that the Internet of Things will include some 26 billion Internet-connected physical devices by 2020. By that time, IoT product and service suppliers will generate incremental revenue of more than $300 billion, according to Gartner.

“IoT is rapidly moving from the fringe of the Internet to the mainstream,” says Tim Murdoch, head of digital services at Cambridge Consultants, a U.K.-based technology consulting firm.

+ ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD 12 most powerful Internet of Things companies | Tech CEOs who raked in the biggest pay raises in 2014 +

The number of anecdotes about the “connected fridge” are abating, Murdoch says, and the number of actually connected and commercially available cars, electricity meters, street lights, wearable technologies and so on is growing rapidly.

Gartner is getting a lot more inquiries from enterprise clients on the IoT, says Hung LeHong, vice president and Gartner fellow, Executive Leadership & Innovation at Gartner. “Most of them are about getting started,” he says. “Either getting started from nothing or IT getting started in working with operational technology counterparts to deliver a true IoT strategy.”

Developing and deploying IoT projects isn’t without challenges. These include choosing the best architectures for each use case, a lack of connectivity standards, a lack of systems integrators with a track record, and delivering ease of use for consumers and enterprise users, LeHong says.

“A big issue is standards and interoperability,” adds Daniel Castro, director of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation’s Center for Data Innovation in Washington. “Building the IoT will require massive amounts of cooperation and coordination between firms.”

Fortunately, companies are getting better at recognizing the benefits of working together to develop common platforms that they can each use. Castro says, “We do not want the IoT to be a closed system — it should be an open system for innovation,” he says.

Another issue is figuring out what business problems or domains you're trying to address. “Otherwise, you throw so much data out there it's hard to scope through,” says Chris Curran, chief technologist at the U.S. advisory practices of consulting firm PwC in New York.

“If you don't have a business problem or domain to begin with, it will be hard to scope out a manageable set of projects,” Curran says. Companies will need to learn how to deal with all the data collection, storage and management involved, he says.

And of course ensuring IoT data security is a big challenge for the industry. Despite these issues, there are IoT initiatives under way today. Here are a few examples from different industries.
Water Management

HydroPoint Data Systems, a water management company in Petaluma, Calif., is leveraging real-time, two-way wireless communications via AT&T’s machine-to-machine network; big data analytics and the cloud to offer customers an automated system that eliminates water waste while monitoring and protecting against damages caused by leaks and runoff.

The system, called WeatherTRAK, has more than 25,000 subscribers who in 2013 saved more than 20 billion gallons of water, 77 million kilowatt hours of electricity and about $143 million in expenses, according to Chris Spain, CEO and president of HydroPoint.

+ ALSO: 15 more weird things in the Internet of Things +

WeatherTRAK is a smart irrigation controller that replaces existing timers with an Internet-enabled controller that can comprehend data inputs delivered from the Internet -- such as weather data -- and provide proactive management to water supply maintainers via a Website and mobile application.

HydroPoint’s platform connects a site’s irrigation system and sprinklers, master valves, flow sensors, historical water bills, water budgets and site-specific weather data into an integrated management framework, Spain says.

“In the field, we utilize machine-to-machine communications, data over power lines and wireless communications back to the cloud,” Spain says. The company, “really couldn’t deliver our service without IoT in any cost effective fashion,” Spain says. “Water management systems, by their very nature, can change from one moment to the next so having real-time monitoring is essential.”

Pirelli, one of the world’s largest tire manufacturers, is gaining insights about the performance of its products in near-real time directly from sensors embedded in the tires.

Using SAP’s HANA data analytics platform, the Milan, Italy, company can manage the enormous amounts of data from its Cyber Tyre products. The tires contain sensors that collect data about tire conditions and performance that influence safety, control and vehicle dynamics.

The tire-mounted sensors enable fleet managers to remotely view tire pressure and temperature, as well as the mileage for each tire. With the HANA platform, the company can run reports on product performance and deliver timely and accurate sales and distribution information, which can lead to more efficient manufacturing and business processes.

According to SAP, Pirelli is building systems to enable the integration of vehicle position and operating data for purposes such as vehicle protection and control; information about traffic, road conditions and parking; remote vehicle behavior and diagnostics; management of logistics and of industrial vehicle fleets; and automated emergency calls.
Smart Lighting

Shorenstein Properties, a San Francisco-based real estate business, recently retrofitted parking lot light fixtures at its Santa Clara Towers office complex to LEDs, and at the same time integrated networking capabilities, creating a “Light Sensory Network” (LSN).

The sensor network, provided by Sensity Systems, links the LED fixtures to deliver both energy-efficient lighting and a real-time, global database of information that enables organizations to better manage physical environment to improve efficiency and security.

With the installation of the network, the facility benefits from an additional energy savings of 30% to 50% over the new LED baseline usage levels, according to Stan Roualdes, executive vice president, Property Management and Construction Services at Shorenstein.

“Continued success with networked LED lights doesn’t depend just on Sensity or upon the current selection of sensors, it will be on the developers who will leverage Sensity’s open API to develop new sensors and new applications that we can leverage,” Roualdes says.

An LSN “can gather real-time parking availability data and provide this information to smart parking application developers through an open API,” Roualdes adds. This can lead to improved services that benefit customers, and new opportunities for Shorenstein. “We see our LSN as a potential revenue-generating opportunity in the future,” he says. “Our lighting fixtures can become strategic assets.”
Healthcare Workflows

Florida Hospital Celebration Health, a hospital in Kissimmee, Fla., opened a new patient tower in 2011 designed to serve as a model for the healthcare industry relative to the latest developments in patient experience and safety, as well as staff efficiency.

The hospital deployed a real-time location system (RTLS) from Stanley Healthcare to track the location of critical medical equipment, automate the monitoring of refrigerator temperatures throughout the facility, and collect more accurate data on hand hygiene compliance.

One particularly interesting application has been a nurse tracking initiative, in which the hospital collects data on nurse activity throughout their shifts.

The goal of the initiative is to better understand how nurses spend their time during their shift and uncover patterns that could lead to increased efficiency and patient satisfaction, says Ashley Simmons, director of performance improvement.

Nurses wear badges with embedded Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags throughout their shift. The system tracks and collects location data continuously. The facility collects all the data and analyzes it using analytics functions in Stanley Healthcare’s MobileView software integrated with Tableau visual analytics software, and also uses its own internal business intelligence tools.

“We now have a better understanding of each patients’ care time requirements and are able to better align staff assignments on the unit based on this information,” Simmons says. The data is even revealing ways the company can design units more efficiently.
Driver Safety

Last year, Ford Motor Co. launched Connected Car Dashboards, a collaborative project with Splunk Enterprise and Cisco that collected and analyzed data from vehicles to gain insight into driving patterns and vehicle performance.

The company used its Ford OpenXC research platform to gather data from connected vehicles. Data was then indexed, analyzed and visualized in Splunk’s machine-generated big data platform and made available in a Connected Car Dashboards, which include visualizations specific to both electric and gas-powered vehicles.

Ford OpenXC is a combination of open source hardware and software that enables developers to read data from a vehicle's internal communications network. By installing a small hardware module to read and translate metrics from vehicles, the data becomes accessible to smartphone or tablet devices that can be used to develop custom applications.

Many of the metrics gathered have never before been available for vehicles, and show insights about driving behavior that could extend to consumer and commercial applications, according to Splunk. Insights gained from the open data project include analysis of the accelerator pedal position, vehicle speed, steering, wheel position, etc.

Expect to see a lot more examples of IoT emerge in the coming months as the technology that supports it evolve and companies grasp the potential benefits.
Security and the IoT

Information security — and privacy — are among the worries many companies have when it comes to the Internet of Things. How do you prevent physical objects such as cars and smart meters from getting hacked?

“Public safety and privacy are the real concerns,” says LeHong.

“Organizationally, the operations folks and the IT folks have to work together to take operational security and IT security to an overall cyber security perspective,” LeHong says. “The two areas will be so intertwined that these groups will have to work together — and maybe even become one group — to be effective.”

A lot of natural reticence to share data “has evaporated around the apps and social media that we use and the cookies we accept,” says Murdoch. “But expect there to be a greater level of concern about devices because of the greater intrusion to our daily lives.”

Security is really about trust and scale, Murdoch says. “Expect to see different approaches to peoples’ data and defaults to not using their data for anything but the actual service being offered,” he says. “Quality of service from a brand will become a key tool in addressing this.”

Organizations can “expect to see a number of incidents where IoTs are hacked, data stolen and services denied,” Murdoch adds. This is especially likely for startups that have not funded adequate security architectures, he says.

In terms of scale, a device that can be used by many different people and different stages of its life will cause problems, Murdoch says, especially when there are billions of them. There will be a need to test and provide quality of services on many different platforms, he says.

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Business users bypass IT and go rogue to the cloud

Business users bypass IT and go rogue to the cloud
Corporate departments act on their own, contending IT is too slow in creating a path to cloud services

IT departments need to watch out for business units or even individual workers going rogue and bypassing IT to go straight to the cloud.

Theres a tug-of-war tension in the enterprise right now, said Gartner analyst Lydia Leong. IT administrators very rarely voluntarily want to go with the public cloud. I call this the turkeys dont vote for thanksgiving theory. The people who are pushing for these services are not IT operations people but business people.

When marketing, events or other corporate business units conclude that IT is dragging its feet on the way to the cloud, the contract for the services themselves. IT often doesn't discover the move until oit shows up in the tech expenses papers.

Right now business strength lies in going around IT, said Rob Enderle, an analyst at the Enderle Group.

Enterprise IT often sees the cloud as a risk. If you go to a large IT meeting, theyll generally place the public cloud as one of their top three or four threats because their line organizations, like marketing or manufacturing, go around IT to set up their own cloud service deals. They can get something cheaper and faster than they could by going through IT but its probably not compliant, he added.

Several analysts said theyve talked with enterprise IT executives who are facing such issues. None of the execs, though, want anyone to know its happening to them.

Jeff Kagan, an independent analyst, said the problem lies in the fact that these are still the early days of corporate cloud services use. Companies lack rules for the technology and users are more eager than IT try it out.

This is the wild, wild West where there are no rules, he added. People are used to storing their own information on their own laptop. Storing it on the cloud doesnt seem to them all that different from what theyve been doing. Were stepping into this cloud world bit by bit and every company has different challenges. This affects many of them.

The Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) trend has contributed to the user push to the cloud, analysts say.

People have gotten pretty comfortable using their own smartphones and tablets at work. IT has had to adapt and learn to manage a network that theyre not totally able to control.

People, who dont want to wait for IT to catch up will contact companies like Google or Amazon directly and simply start storing data in the cloud.

It's also about departments using clouds to get around budget constraints and a lack of capacity in IT, said Dan Olds, an analyst at Gabriel Consulting Group.

In a lot of ways, this reminds me of the 90's when departments went wild with building their own data centers and IT capabilities. In a lot of cases, that resulted in higher costs, security vulnerabilities, and poor integration, Olds said.

When IT is left out, its personnel has no idea how secure the clouds are or exactly where the information is being stored. It also means IT can't negotiate the best deal -- one that could encompass many different departments or data stores.

Best case, organizations might end up spending more on cloud services than they would if they mounted the service on systems the data center already owns, said Olds. Worst case, the organization could find that critical data is now outside their firewall and perhaps could be accessed by folks who shouldn't be able to see it.

Since analysts doubt IT can stop businesses from bypassing them on a whole-scale level, they say the tech execs need to set up strong cloud governance policies.

Its not really acceptable for IT to say no when someone wants to use the cloud, said Leong. They need to set up service agreements with approved providers and set up controls for how secure information needs to be. How do they provide risk management? How do they make this work instead of just saying, You cant do this.

Every time we take a step further into the information age, its unprotected, said Kagan. IT says theyre swamped just keeping everyone connected. They dont really have the time to proactively protect against future threats. They have to make the time.

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3 Things That Will Make the New Dell Different

I had a fascinating and wide-ranging discussion with Michael Dell in advance of last week's Dell World. (We even chatted about his new Tesla S. He's a big fan of that car.)

But what's of greater interest is how becoming private will change Dell. Since the company's no longer beholden to shareholders and quarterly earnings, Dell now seems prime to innovate and to renew its commitment to both customers and partners. In the long run, this should make Michael Dell a better CEO and Dell a better company.

Robots and Watson and Scanners, Oh My

I shared with Dell my belief that robots, 3-D scanners, intelligent systems such as IBM Watson and superconductors are all fighting to be the next big thing. Google is working furiously on robots, HP on 3-D printers and scanners and IBM on intelligent systems. I asked about Dell's plans to create the next wave.

While he neither confirmed nor denied he was working on any of these things, he did point out that, by going private, Dell will have more than $1 billion in extra cash every year. This cash will be spent on buying down debt and making big bets on the future consistent with, but not limited to, the technologies mentioned above. Since Dell sets the benchmark on how to buy companies right, acquiring a firm that already has an advanced position is clearly on the table as well.

Dell World News: Dell, Red Hat Team to Sell Enterprise Openstack

More: Dell Jumps Into Enterprise Mobility Management

Dell has been freed up to create a new wave - and Michael Dell seems excited about being freed up to anticipate a market instead of chasing it.

Keeping Customers Happy Is Easy Without Shareholders

Most people don't realize that a public CEO really has to balance a company's interests among a number of key customers. This includes the customers for their stock, which just wants stock prices and dividends to go up; they don't really care about customer satisfaction, employees or the sustainability of the company. That's how Mark Hurd could get such high marks as HP's CEO even though he crippled the company. Plus, since CEO compensation is often tied tightly to stock performance, this can make CEOs do stupid things to keep their companies running.

By going private, Michael Dell now only has to worry about users and IT buyers. Yes, there is tension between these two groups, but it's far less than that created by investors. As a result, the complaints I get about Dell have fallen off a cliff; Dell customers, collectively, seem much happier.

Granted, some of this is likely due to how upset they are at Oracle at the moment, making all other companies look better by comparison, but Dell's renewed focus on customers' needs hasn't gone unnoticed - and this is happening in advance of the major changes that going private will drive.

Turning Partnerships Into a Competitive Advantage

While most of Dell's competitors spread themselves very thin, attacking every new market opportunity that emerges, Dell picks its fights carefully. This is particularly with regard to Web services, where Dell has decided to implement a strategy that will differentiate them from the other firms.


Rather than compete aggressively, Dell treats Web services firms more like customers - and these firms are responding by favoring Dell for servers. Companies don't like to buy from companies they compete with. This gives Dell, at least with respect to companies in its class, a competitive advantage.

Some of these firms had been moving to create their own hardware, too. Dell's move, then, should create a more favorable alternative, since it comes with services and experience. This should make the result far more reliable, with a far lower TCO as well.

CEOs of Private Companies Have an Easier Job

One thing I've noticed about CEOs of public companies is that they tend to do three things: Overwork themselves (Steve Jobs), focus so much on stock performance that they harm the firm (Hurd), or take the job for granted and mine the perks (Carly Fiorina at HP).

These examples are extreme, but often you'll find a bend of these problems in most CEOs. None of the paths are good for the company. While Michael Dell, as a founder, would generally resist No. 2 and 3 anyway, the risk of No. 1 and the conflicts of No. 2 are clearly driven by the special requirements of a large, public company.

Related: 7 Habits of Highly Effective Tech CEOsAlso: How a CIO Can Save an Incompetent CEO

The best benefit of being private is that lets the CEO to think about ways to advance the company and be a better manager. The collateral benefits won't just be better customer and partner relations or a fascinating new product. The end result will be a much stronger and healthier CEO - and that will result in a much stronger Dell.

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Report: Yahoo board approves deal to buy Tumblr for $1.1B

Rumors that Yahoo might be in talks to acquire the blogging site emerged last week

Yahoo's board of directors has approved spending $1.1 billion in cash to buy popular blogging site Tumblr, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The plan is for Tumblr to operate as an independent business, the Journal reported on Sunday, quoting anonymous sources.

Asked via email about the Journal's report, a Yahoo spokeswoman declined to comment. Tumblr didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Tumblr has a solid base of devoted users who are passionate about its creative and community-building power and their fear of the effects of commercialization under Yahoo is palpable, according to Andrew Frank, a Gartner analyst.

"They fear loss of control over the interface, over privacy, and over the freedom of expression in general," Frank said via email.

Thus, for the acquisition to be successful, Yahoo must strike a balance between keeping Tumblr users engaged and delivering a positive return to Yahoo shareholders through advertising. "It will be a daunting challenge which will shed light on the future of both Yahoo and creative social self-expression," Frank said.

Rumors that Yahoo might be in discussions to buy Tumblr emerged last week, and on Friday Yahoo called for a mystery press event to be held in New York City on Monday afternoon. Tumblr's headquarters are in Manhattan.

"Join us as we share something special," reads the invite, sent to members of the press.

The Journal's All Things D technology news site had reported earlier Friday, citing anonymous sources, that Yahoo might be interested in partnering with, investing in or outright buying Tumblr.

Adweek, in another report also citing unnamed sources, put the value of the deal at $1 billion.

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer is expected to be at the New York City event, according to CNBC.

The blogging and social networking site, founded in 2007, has 175 employees and hosts more than 100 million blogs.

Mayer is interested in Tumblr because she believes it can help boost Yahoo's advertising revenue and give Yahoo a bigger presence in the consumer social media market, according to the Journal.

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Top 10 Ways: Transfer files between PC and Android [Windows, OSX, Linux]

If you happen to transfer files very frequently from your PC to Android device, probably you hate looking for the USB cable and MTP connections. Lets explore all the best possible ways to transfer files between Android and PC:

Top 10 ways to transfer files between Android and PC Wirelessly

0. USB / MTP / Mount SD card (Wired method)
If you happen to have a USB connection between Android and PC, this is first option. When connected in MTP mode (settings > storage > menu > USB computer connection > MTP), Windows, Linux auto-mounts your phone storage. On OSX, you need AFT.
1. AirDroid
One of the most feature-rich apps on Android. Using AirDroid you can see your Android device’s status, files, images, videos, contacts, SMS, call history, etc.

Simply run the app on phone and point your desktop browser to phone’s IP address (shown in AirDroid). You can optionally use a password for secure file transfer between any PC and Android device.

Another similar app is Wifi Explorer. You can also checkout file managers that support file transfers, the best one is ES File Explorer v3.

2. FTP / SFTP File Transfer
You can map a Virtual drive on Windows/Mac/ Linux that can be used to put files on Android phone and vice-versa. Its easy as long as you can follow the steps carefully.

Get an FTP server on your phone, an app like SwiFTP, configure it to have a username/password.

On your desktop PC Mount a directory for your phone’s ip address as FTP server [OSX, Linux guide] and you’re all set. Then onwards you can drag and drop files between Android and PC or explore it in your OS’s explorer.

Alternatively you can also use FTP client on PC like FileZilla.

3. Awesome Drop
Drag and drop file you wish to transfer into Chrome/Safari browser and the file is transferred to your Android phone/tablet. You need to open http://labs.dashwire.com/drop/android in your browser tab.

4. ADB wireless
Not a user friendly way. But if you’re a developer you can use “adb push filename” to transfer files to android and “adb pull filename” for copying file from Android to PC. These are standard commands for file transfer over USB ADB. But using ADB wireless, you can do it all over the air: Wifi.

5. qrSend
Right click any file on PC: Windows, Linux, OSX and send to > qrCode. This generates a QR code which when scanned by android app initiates the transfer.

First off, download qrSend’s Windows application (JAR file for Mac OS X or Linux) on your computer, and install the Android app on your device. In order to transfer the file(s), simply right-click your desired item, followed by clicking ‘Send with qrSend’ from the context menu. Fire the android app and scan the barcode. Within a matter of seconds, file transfer will be initiated.

6. Dropbox / Google Drive /SkyDrive / Box.net
If you’ve a Google Drive or Dropbox / SkyDrive account, syncing files is slick. Drag and drop your files into the synced folder and the files will appear on the Android app. This is a popular way of syncing your files across multiple devices: Desktops, laptops, phones, tablets.

7. Samba server
Samba is a file sharing protocol for sharing files across PCs. Same can be brought to Android with a cool little app. Once you run and configure the app, your phone becomes visible to your Windows, Linux, OSX PC Network.

Go into Network LAN explorer (“Network Neighborhood” on Windows) on your PC and you can see your Android device there. The Android share can typically be accessed using IP address like \\ip.add.re.ss e.g. \\192.168.1.10 in the Windows Explorer or Run command. For OSX instructions, checkout this, for Linux see here.

App lets you mount device’s SDCARD as a network location which can be configured for username/password, Windows workgroup name, and NETBIOS name.

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The Internet of Things: Coming to a network near you

How IT needs to get ready for the next wave of connected devices.

When people talk about the Internet of Things (IoT), the most common examples are smart cars, IP-addressable washing machines and Internet-connected nanny cams.

But IoT is coming to the enterprise as well, and IT execs should already be thinking about the ways that IoT will shake up the corporate network.

"Products and services which were previously outside their domain will increasingly be under their jurisdiction," says Daniel Castro, senior analyst with the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a Washington-based research and educational institute.

So, what are these devices?

Castro says that companies increasingly will be operating in "smart buildings" with advanced HVAC systems that are connected to the rest of the corporate network.

Many utility companies will be deploying Web-connected smart meters at customers' facilities to allow for remote monitoring.

Companies are tying their physical security to their network security, so that data from security cameras and authentication readers are coming under the purview of enterprise IT.

Retailers such as WalMart, Target and Best Buy already use RFID and other tracking technologies to manage supply chain logistics, says IDC's Michael Fauscette. IoT is a natural next step.

Then there's "operational technology," where enterprise assets such as manufacturing equipment, fleet trucks, rail cars, even patient monitoring equipment in hospitals, become networked devices, says Hung LeHong, research vice president at Gartner.

"Those types of assets are becoming Internet enabled," LeHong says. And even though they are managed by field operations or hospital services, he says, they could become end points on the corporate network, just like smartphones and tablets.

Other examples of operational technology might include companies deploying vending machines that are connected to the Internet, so that they can be automatically restocked when certain items run low. "These assets are becoming part of online world, and they could now be on the enterprise network," LeHong says.

Another key area where IoT is making an appearance is what Gartner calls the digital supply chain. That's when a company's end products, such as consumer electronics or large machinery, are Internet enabled so that the manufacturer can keep track of things such as maintenance schedules.

"The digital supply chain continues after you deliver the physical product," LeHong says. A growing number of the more expensive assets and products that are arriving on the market will have this capability, he says.

Another place where IoT is showing up is in consumer offerings such as home automation and the smart grid. IT executives in industries such as gas and electric utilities will need to stay abreast of developments such as how smart meters and other types of data-generating solutions will affect IT and the corporate network.

And finally, IoT is emerging in so-called smart cities, where all kinds of devices and assets such as traffic lights, parking meters and garbage truck fleets are gradually being connected to the Internet. Municipal government IT executives will need to be aware of how these assets tie in to the network.
IT and OT convergence

What will likely happen is a convergence of operational technology and IT. "As these machines go onto the corporate network the CIO or the COO need to start talking together about what the future is going to look like when traditional IT stuff and OT stuff are overlapping on the network," LeHong says.

"Who is responsible for providing security, for example," LeHong says. "There are skill sets that exist in IT that are very developed, but that are new or not a prime focus for the operations guy. There can be some synergies."

IT executives will need to prepare themselves for situations such as when an IP-based vending machine is creating software replenishment orders for out-of-stock items using an enterprise resource planning application, LeHong says.

"When it creates the replenishment order does the vending machine need a user license" for the ERP application, LeHong says. "CIOs need to get an understanding of this. Even if they are not going to own the vending machines, they need to worry about things like that. That's what we mean by convergence. OT and IT can't sit in separate worlds anymore. They need to discuss things like governance, security, software licensing and maintenance."

In terms of networking technology and strategies at enterprises, IoT will have a significant impact. According to a report on IoT trends published by Gartner in 2012, things will be connected, but not necessarily in the ways most familiar to companies today.

"Wi-Fi, 3G/4G cellular and Bluetooth are the wireless connectivity technologies we are most familiar with; however, they will not be the only way things connect to the Internet," the report states.

These network technologies and protocols consume lots of power and are designed for higher-bandwidth applications, the firm says, but many things (for example, a temperature/humidity sensor in a remote agricultural setting) will require low bandwidth, long range and very low power consumption.

In addition, things will need to be addressable. Every computer, smartphone and tablet is addressable on the Internet, directly or indirectly via IP, the Gartner report says, and "it follows that things will also need to be addressable so they can communicate with other things, applications and people on the Internet."

While not every "thing" will have an IP address, it will need to be addressable.
Big Data

Then there are the data management issues. Getting the most value out of IoT requires an ability to manage data and gain insight from analyzing that data, Gartner says.

If everything has the potential to provide some type of data stream, companies will need technologies to manage, store and analyze the data. While some organizations might be able to leverage existing information management tools, many will need to bring in new technologies designed to handle the real-time and large-scale nature of the IoT.

Recent IT trends such as the move to the cloud and implementations of big data and analytics will likely come into play with the IoT, experts say.

"Are you going to procure cloud services for hooking up these things to the corporate network?" LeHong says. "And it's not just questions about the cloud, but about end-point management and architecture. Let's say you have a jet engine or a pump in an oil field that can produce a terabyte of information per day. That's a lot of data."

From an architectural standpoint, IT and operations will need to decide whether to store that data on site, in the cloud or in a corporate data store.

Looking ahead to the next few years, growth of the IoT will probably be greatest in areas such as inventory tracking and supply chain management, Castro says. But given the way technology is developing, it's likely that the IoT will be pervasive in many aspects of business.

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CES scorecard: the biggest misses of CES 2012

There were many promises, but not all were delivered

The annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas gets under way this weekend with big announcements from gadget makers keen to wow and convince us they have the next big thing. But it's worth remembering that some of the promises and predictions made at CES are about as solid as many New Year's resolutions.

Check out the gadgets at last year's show

So as you see the gadgets announced and the promises flow from the CES show floor, take a moment to remember some of the bigger misses of CES 2012.

Perhaps the award for most optimism goes to the Google TV camp. The company had big plans to shake up the way you watched television, delivering YouTube and other Internet content right alongside your existing channels. Some of the biggest names in TV were behind the plan: Samsung, LG and Sony all promised Google-enabled TVs at CES 2012.

But fast forward 12 months and the selection of Google TV devices is pretty thin: a single TV from LG, and set top boxes from Sony and Vizio.

And talking of TV, does anyone remember the big MySpace announcement? The company declared its latest -- and as it turned out, not its only relaunch of 2012 -- would be on televisions. MySpace TV was billed as a video on demand service with a social twist: you can "discover, share and comment" on what you're watching with your friends. We're still waiting for it.

One prediction that fell flat on its face was the XO-3 low-cost tablet from One Laptop Per Child. The promised 8-inch tablet was to be a low-cost computing tool for students in developing countries.A It would only cost $100, project leader Nicholas NegroponteA said, but like most OLPC projects the grand pronouncements turned out a little too ambitious. By November, the entire project was canceled without a single XO-3 making it into the hands of a student.

Intel talked up its Ultrabook line of thin laptops at CES 2012 and talked down tablets. "People like to create in order to express themselves," Intel exec Mooly Eden said. They are not "consumption cows," he added, taking a shot at tablets, which are often viewed as mere content consumption devices. Twelve months later, the tablet market is going gangbusters.

Alongside the product misses, there were also announcements that turned out to be a little optimistic.

Take Huawei's Ascend P1, for example. Billed as the world's slimmest smartphone, the Android-powered device was to be available worldwide from April, but April just brought further launch details. It was out in some Asian markets, Latin America and Europe by the middle of the year, but the promised U.S. launch is still yet to happen.

And Belkin came to CES 2012 with good news for Mac users eager to make the most of the new Thunderbolt connectors that had begun appearing on Apple computers. Belkin showed off a dock that provided two Thunderbolt ports and a host of others. Originally due in September last year, it's still not on the market and now promised early this year.

The Consumer Electronics Show runs from Jan. 8 to 11. Most of the major news from product vendors will come during events on Jan. 6 and 7.

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