Recently undertaken research reveals that the Internet of Things (IoT) is on the verge of major development. However, in order to leverage increasingly emerging interconnected world one has to get to grips with the other two initiatives that will delineate this era of IT: Cloud Computing and Big Data. The IoT is driven by a perfect fusion of both.

SMEs are nowadays seeking ways to capitalize on connected devices to gain a competitive edge by having upper hand on these evolving technologies.

The Burgeoning Internet of Things

According to the recent research conducted by one of the leading research firm Gartner, near about 4.9 billion connected devices will be in use by 2015. This will further expected to be escalating to 25 billion by 2020.

Gartner proposes that consumer-based devices will govern the market in the coming years. Nevertheless, it is essential to understand that each user device is relaying to one or more businesses, thereby providing substantial data that can be probed and used for future promotion or investigation purposes.

Gartner has also projected that near about 2.9 billion connected things will be used in the consumer sector in 2015. And this will reach over 13 billion in 2020 (see in the image given below). While, the automotive sector is expected to have 96 % of growth rate in 2015 (which is highest among other sectors). For the industrial sector, it is forecasted that utilities are likely to be the ultimate forerunner in IoT devices, next to manufacturing and government sectors.

Inrernet of Things Unit Installed Base by Category

Category 2013 2014 2015
Automotive 96.0 189.6 372.3
Consumer 1,842.1 2,244.5 2,874.9
Generic Business 395.2 479.4 623.9
Vertical Business 698.7 836.5 1,009.4
Grand Total 3,032.0 3,750.0 4,880.6

"

While the IoT may still be in its embryonic stage, within a few years it is expected to be embraced by all. This will enable organizations looking forward to capitalize on the next big technological drive to reinforce their business bottom lines.

Understanding and Mastering Next Generation IT

- When looked over discretely, it was found that each aspect of the IoT is not exactly ground-breaking. The remote sensors have been prevailing since the time computing has been. The major difference is now the underlying infrastructure and Internet has finally matured enough to seamlessly manage billions of devices. Thanks to the emergence of recent technological advancement such as big data and the cloud.

- Both the aforementioned technological aspects play a critical role in IoT success. For organizations seeking ways to make most of these connected devices, gaining better understanding about IoT begins with knowing why it is so powerful.

- Cloud computing offers the user with a superior level of connectivity that was near to impossible earlier for all except large conglomerates. This was possible only because these enterprises owned huge hardware that was once required for such type of next-gen technologies.

- Big data facilitates a way much better to handle huge inflow of information, which otherwise would either overpower the existing systems or simply get stored and overlooked.

- SMEs are in a very powerful spot nowadays specifically when I talk about IoT. The critical information gathered from these devices can make headway in evening out the playing field, and it can also assist in spanning the awareness gap between them and SMEs.

- IT managers at SMEs may aspire to instigate reconnoitering the power of these devices now, but also recognizing that simply jumping into the world of devices is not enough. 

In a nutshell, I would say that becoming proficient at the underlying technology is a must. Since only then you can take advantage of the Internet of Things as a tool for improvement and as a way to differentiate from your competitors.