IoT set to subsume IT markets

MACHINA Research, the London-based M2M and Internet of Things (IoT) specialist, has produced a new report on the area positing a “Global IoT market opportunity” of $4.3 trillion by 2024.

According to the report’s author, Machina Research’s Emil Berthelsen, as M2M evolves and transforms into IoT, it will essentially gobble substantial shares of traditional IT markets, “ultimately subsuming them”, said Emil.

“IoT is actually focusing on a lot of markets with data and applications, it’s becoming IT-like and it’s transforming IT itself in the process,” he added.

In other words IT will simply become IoT and, as the saying goes, everything that can be connected, will be connected, turning both the corporate world and the built environment into one huge interconnected machine, and operating in what could be called ‘human real time’ – collecting data, sifting it and controlling all the elements at their end-points, such as cars, automatic transport systems, meters, home security systems, industrial processes… everything will have an IoT tinge to it.

So what’s changed to produce that huge number? Machina Research said it’s counting in a significantly greater number of connections to devices and sensors but also to corporate IT systems, other IoT applications, social media, published data feeds, and so on.

The report also said there will be a pronounced shift from vertically structured, ‘stovepipe’ solutions to open systems nurturing application and data sharing. And there will be a focus on application development and the reuse of data to create new and innovative services or efficiencies with tangible benefits for enterprises, it says.

The report summary said: “In order to value the IoT we have taken account of these wider elements in the ecosystem, over and above the simple M2M opportunity. That M2M element is a crucial part of the revenue associated with IoT: the four major building blocks of M2M revenue (devices, installation, connectivity and M2M services) will be worth approximately $2.5 trillion by the end of 2024.”