The Vision

Since the beginnings of the Internet 30 years ago, we have witnessed a number of changes in the application of communications technologies. Today, the Internet can be described to a large extent as a ubiquitous infrastructure; it is always accessible and is always on.

After this first era of building-up the digital virtual world by connecting places and connecting people, the Internet of the future will also connect and involve things and reflect more exactly what is happening in the physical world. Things, which have been made in some sense "intelligent" with the help of technology, can tell us who they are and where they are, what they are good for, and what is happening in their surroundings, as well as help people master challenges in various situations.

The core idea behind the resulting Internet of Things is to seamlessly gather any useful information about objects of the physical world and use the information in various applications during the objects' entire life cycle. Collecting information and making it available, for example, about the objects' and goods' origin, location, movements, physical properties, usage history, and context, can help enterprises improve both existing intra- and inter-company business processes and also create new ones. Existing business processes may become more accurate since information taken directly from the point of action can be used to manage processes and related decision-making procedures. The continuous evolution of embedded and ubiquitous computing technologies, in terms of decreasing costs and increasing capabilities, may even lead to the distribution of existing business processes to the "network edges" and can overcome many limitations of existing centralized approaches.

Business Impact

The Internet of Things will have an impact on many traditional industries, such as retail, manufacturing, and logistics. It will create significant business opportunities for companies across industries by opening up new markets and will become an important factor of tomorrow's business environment and Web-based service economy. Its development holds the potential to provide market stakeholders with a competitive advantage in global markets, be it in terms of technologies or new services and applications. Huge markets can be addressed, such as medical systems to monitor our well-being, support for safe and independent living of all citizens, intelligent traffic management, efficient supply chains, improved environmental monitoring, and adaptive energy management, just to name a few.

Business Opportunities

Consequently, the Internet of Things is expected to create tremendous business opportunities for the information and communication technology (ICT) industry, including software vendors. Currently, software accounts for an estimated 20% of the overall market. However, software may soon become the major segment of the Internet of Things market once initial investments, mainly in hardware, have been made.

A bright perspective isn't it? But, will all this become a reality in the near future? Or are we simply witnessing the next Internet bubble?