Mainstreaming IoT Demands New Business Models: Technicolor Report

After years of the IoT serving niche applications and specialized use cases, trends are converging to push it mainstream by creating new ways for products and services to interact with individuals, the cloud environment and potentially “thousands of applications,” said a Tuesday Technicolor report. Advances in processing power, automation and intelligence have evolved over the past decade at the same time costs have dropped for sensors that connect devices to hubs. “The biggest difference between where we are today and where we were five years ago is that IoT is increasingly seen as a mainstream technology that is accepted as an important part of the fabric that defines our digital lives,” said Girish Naganathan, chief technology officer, Technicolor Connected Home. IoT applications are emerging in building management, energy efficiency, industrial IoT and connected spaces, said Naganathan. Brownfield development in IoT-enabled durable goods like appliances and cars allows software created on top of legacy systems to coexist with products and software that have been in production for decades, he said. Combining IoT capabilities with legacy technologies allows a manufacturer to alert users that a system is about to fail and trigger a service call, he said. Greenfield development in IoT -- products created from the ground up for internet connectivity -- is “fundamentally changing user experiences,” he said, giving connected thermostats, smart locks and TVs as examples. IoT is playing a central role in transforming home gateways and set-top boxes that manage broadband traffic for in-home consumption, evolving from supporting proprietary single-function applications and devices to platforms that manage an array of complex services within the home, he noted. That trend is “unleashing new economic activity that is being enhanced by new innovative services in the cloud.” The IoT opens a new world of business models, technologies and services to create “integrated experiences that are intuitive and secure,” said Naganathan. It will be important for companies to forge and nurture long-term IoT relationships “that integrate complex technologies and go-to-market strategies” that are “frictionless experiences” for consumers and businesses, he said.