Market & Venue Perspective
For various historical reasons, some vertical markets (we call them venues) will be earlier adopters of Pervasive Internet technologies than others. Buildings/Facilities, Retail, and Industrial tend to be much further along today than Healthcare/Medical and IT, for example—though every venue shows some activity, and no venue is even close to taking full advantage of the available solutions.
Physical components of the Pervasive Internet—i.e., sensors and basic connectivity—are obviously perfectly horizontal, and applicable to almost any venue. Back-end applications such as asset management and customer profiling are also very generalized concepts that can be applied to almost any business. However, the way that such applications are applied will vary considerably from venue to venue. Some solutions providers have tailored their offerings to one or more venues from the outset. Other providers maintain broadly horizontal offerings. The horizontal solutions-suppliers will be quite important to the development of the Pervasive Internet, but in most cases they will need internal or outsourced expertise to fit their offerings to the special needs of specific markets.
Once a device becomes networked and is monitored for the primary purposes of device status, usage tracking, and consumables replenishment, it will also serve the larger business purpose of being a key driver for the vertical customization of services in general. For example, “asset management” is an important service that incorporates a number of different variables and systems (ERP, SCM, etc.). Asset management providers need to make their necessarily horizontal package of services responsive to devices and systems that are configured for the environment in which they operate—factory, office, hospital, and elsewhere. A product inventory program will have a much different configuration in a factory than it will in an office building. More than ever before, the drivers, needs, and environmental conditions will determine the way technology is implemented. Ultimately, all devices and services, like asset management, will be highly configurable to match the needs of a particular venue, or even of a particular end-user.
We have now entered the age when everyday objects will communicate with, and control, other objects over a global data network—24/7/365, without human attention or intervention. That network is the Internet. The objects are everything from consumer appliances to the elevator you’ve been waiting for. It’s not “the future,” it’s now—this year, next year—and thus it is vitally important that business leaders understand this phenomenon, its effects on their business, and what they should do right now to position themselves for things that are literally just around the corner:
Physical components of the Pervasive Internet—i.e., sensors and basic connectivity—are obviously perfectly horizontal, and applicable to almost any venue. Back-end applications such as asset management and customer profiling are also very generalized concepts that can be applied to almost any business. However, the way that such applications are applied will vary considerably from venue to venue. Some solutions providers have tailored their offerings to one or more venues from the outset. Other providers maintain broadly horizontal offerings. The horizontal solutions-suppliers will be quite important to the development of the Pervasive Internet, but in most cases they will need internal or outsourced expertise to fit their offerings to the special needs of specific markets.
Once a device becomes networked and is monitored for the primary purposes of device status, usage tracking, and consumables replenishment, it will also serve the larger business purpose of being a key driver for the vertical customization of services in general. For example, “asset management” is an important service that incorporates a number of different variables and systems (ERP, SCM, etc.). Asset management providers need to make their necessarily horizontal package of services responsive to devices and systems that are configured for the environment in which they operate—factory, office, hospital, and elsewhere. A product inventory program will have a much different configuration in a factory than it will in an office building. More than ever before, the drivers, needs, and environmental conditions will determine the way technology is implemented. Ultimately, all devices and services, like asset management, will be highly configurable to match the needs of a particular venue, or even of a particular end-user.
We have now entered the age when everyday objects will communicate with, and control, other objects over a global data network—24/7/365, without human attention or intervention. That network is the Internet. The objects are everything from consumer appliances to the elevator you’ve been waiting for. It’s not “the future,” it’s now—this year, next year—and thus it is vitally important that business leaders understand this phenomenon, its effects on their business, and what they should do right now to position themselves for things that are literally just around the corner:
- Manufacturing and farming equipment, elevators and escalators, appliances and vehicles that know exactly when and why they will fail, and then alert you or your service organization before the failure occurs—or even, in some cases, fix themselves.
- Buildings and facilities with “digital nervous systems” that ensure occupant comfort and safety, and even enhance productivity.
- Retailers and distributors who know exactly where every piece arrived of inventory is at any moment, and under what conditions it.
- Industrial power customers who save a fortune on energy by being able to see, in real time, exactly how they’re using it.
- OEMs that are not “disintermediated” at the point of sale, but stay connected to end-customers via a steady stream of thus able to offer profitable after-market services and to engage in smart marketing that isn’t a shot-in-the-dark waste of money. status/usage/performance data from their connected products,
- Healthcare facilities where accurate, up-to-the-minute patient information is always available because every piece of medical equipment, from digital thermometers to life-support machines, is networked and associated with a patient ID.
- Medical implants that doctors can monitor remotely in realtime,
no matter where the patient is.
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Buildings >> Download
The Buildings venue includes HVAC, security & access, lighting, fire & safety systems that reside in buildings and facilities across Commercial / Institutional, Industrial & Residential segments. These services are built to automate and react to environmental conditions. |
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Energy >> Download
The Energy venue is organized into three market segments: Supply Side, Demand Side, Gas/Oil & Natural Resources. Dynamic energy management, power quality & pipeline monitoring, and smart generation are examples of "smart energy" applications that help businesses and utilities. |
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Healthcare >> Download
The Healthcare venue includes applications such as telemedicine, asset management and supply chain optimization that address cost and treatment in hospitals/clinics, doctors' offices, nursing homes, and home health care including remote monitoring; this venue also includes Lab equipment. |
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Industrial >> DownloadThe Industrial venue covers industrial asset monitoring and tracking, involving discrete monitoring of assets or devices to ensure uptime performance, version control, and location analysis for a wide range of factory processes. |
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IT System >> DownloadThe IT & Network Systems venue includes IT equipment - servers, storage, etc. as well as network equipment - switches, routers, etc. as well as systems and devices to manage data centers and infrastructure. |
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Retail >> DownloadThe retail venue covers networking systems and devices that allow retailers to have increased visibility of the supply chain, gather consumer and product information, improve inventory control, reduce energy consumption, and track assets and security. |
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Security >> DownloadThe Security venue includes emergency services/public safety including breakdown services, and lone worker applications, homeland security and environmental monitoring. |
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Transportation >> DownloadThe Transporatation venue includes vehicle telematics and mobile communications with vehicles and trucks; navigation, vehicle diagnostics, and supply chain integration are some of the services possible with vehicle telematics. |