Photo: Robert Couse-Baker. Used under Creative Commons License 2.0
IoT is dead! Long live IoT! That seems to be the message from Forrester Research in its predictions for 2019. It claims the umbrella term IoT is past it use-by date and will be supplanted by a series of terms for specific implementations of technology that today are branded IoT.
“Internet of things has always been a poor term to describe increasingly complex interactions among machines, products, sensors, data, and other connected elements — focusing conversations on technology rather than the outcomes that businesses and customers value,” Forrester says.
Forrester argues that the term ‘IoT’ is a poor proxy for many of the components of the ongoing digital transformation in every industry and, lacking any intrinsic value, is not a solution in its own right.
“This undermines the usefulness of ‘IoT’ as a descriptor for go-to-market activities by the broad spectrum of vendors that are trying to sell it. ”
Forrester predicts that in 2019, the term ‘IoT’ will take a back seat in the marketing lexicon, and vendors of IoT solutions will revert to language that describes business solutions and outcomes, such as ‘real-time asset performance monitoring’, which is “a combination of IoT, data, analytics, workflow, business process, and insight with recognisable and quantifiable value.”
Other IoT predictions from Forrester are:
– Bundled service offerings will catalyse a sleepy consumer IoT market;
– IoT platforms will proliferate, and cloud giants will compete to be their destination;
– Cybercriminals will lay siege to a smart city implementation;
– A market for IoT managed services will emerge in 2019.
