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MAIN PANEL
- Think Pervasive
The Revolution Will Not Be “Productized”: Notes from the First M2M Expo and Conference.
- SmartSphere® “Living Business Intelligence”™
Harbor’s innovative online service is a totally new kind of research experience. It supports almost any type of project. Our earlier Pervasive Internet Report, for example, has been replaced and enhanced by our SmartSphere® “Pervasive Internet Suppliers” project.
- Real-Time
Polling & Charting on Harbor’s site
Cast your vote on key Pervasive questions and find out what other
thought-leaders think. You can suggest questions, too.
SIDE PANEL
All issues of Harbor “Currents” are archived
on the Web.
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| Technology
suppliers: We want you in our Knowledge Base
If your company has anything to do with Internet-enabled devices or
M2M (from sensors to services), we want your full profile in the Knowledge
Base that drives our online SmartSphere® projects on M2M and the Pervasive Internet (PDF, 224 KB). In addition to
our regular subscribers,
nearly
700 business and high-tech
journalists
have
full
access to
this ever-growing relational database of companies, products and events.
There is no cost to your company, but we do need
your help. Please download
our company profiling form—a Microsoft
Word document with fields
that you can easily fill out on screen. Complete the form
and email it to us to start the process. We’ll follow
up for additional information, if needed. When complete, we’ll
send you an attractive PDF file of your profile that you can use
for
your own
purposes.
Of course, your PDF-based profile will be a static
document. But users of our online SmartSphere® projects will see your company and
its
information dynamically—as part of graphical sector and venue
maps, and in auto-generated links to other records in the database,
such as other companies and ongoing events related to you and your
products or services. |
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| Suppliers and Adopters: We want your Press Releases
If your company emails press releases about Pervasive-related events, put
us on your list at pr@harborresearch.com.
We’ll include your announcements in the events-tracking of our SmartSphere® projects, linked to a databased profile of your
organization. (You can help us create a good profile by filling out our company
profiling form.) |
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Our free white papers reflect both our
research activities and our consulting.
“Think
Smart, Think Connected: Maintaining
Competitive Advantage in an Open, Connected Landscape” (August,
2003)
EU Corporate Leaders Meet in Paris to Discuss
New Business Opportunities of a Connected World. PDF
format, 220 KB.
“Let the Circle Be Unbroken: How Device Networking
/ M2M and the Internet Will Automate the Global Enterprise” (July,
2003)
Direct and easy to understand, this paper is an excellent introduction
to the Pervasive Internet and the many ways in which wired and wireless
device communication will completely automate global business. PDF
format, 392 KB.
“Core Network Providers:
Can They Escape the Commoditization Spiral?” (June 2003)
Today, core connectivity providers are in a declining-profit commodity
business and suffocating under mountains of dot-com build-out debt.
Meanwhile, a vast source of future growth
and revenue—device
networking / M2M—lies just outside their human-centric
blinders, along with the chance to adopt a truly 21st century business
model: that of the enterprise-automation “infotributor.” PDF
format, 740 KB.
“The ‘Always On’ Pervasive
Internet: Why Broadband Means More Than Bits” (January,
2002)
The buzz about broadband always emphasizes bandwidth and human-centric
applications such as video-on-demand or voice-over-IP. But for the
device-centric Pervasive Internet, broadband’s virtue is not its
bandwidth but the fact that it’s “always
on.” PDF
format, 180 KB.
“Catalytic Strategy:
Hasten Change, Shape Your Industry” (January, 2002)
In chemistry, a catalyst is an agent that speeds up the reaction
that produces a desired compound.
In high-tech business, the relentless rapid
change can be unnerving, but trying to
resist it
will only
get
you
hurt.
In fact,
it’s
often
a good idea to speed it up—and then use the resulting
disruption and momentum to your advantage. To do so, find a way
to become a catalyst yourself, or find a business ally to be a
catalyst for you. PDF format,
180 KB.
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Our popular Pervasive Internet diagrams are
vector-based PDF files that look great at any screen size or printer
resolution.
The “Device ISP” Opportunity
Major connectivity providers have made some device-centric strides, but we’re still living in “The Telephone Age.” A huge M2M / Pervasive Internet opportunity exists for those who “own the wire” or control a piece of wireless spectrum. (This diagram is also featured in this issue of “Currents.”)
Click
here to download the Device ISP PDF (400 KB).
M2M Ecosystems
Potential M2M adopters are looking for a bridge across the chasm between technology innovation and real-world business value. Only full supplier ecosystems can build that bridge. This diagram uses Harbor’s SIGNALSmart™ framework to show what’s needed, and what adopters do—and do not—care about.
Click
here to download the M2M Ecosystems PDF (70 KB) .
M2M Market Landscape
Distribution of Pervasive Internet / M2M players in terms of product / services mix and scope of solution, circa March 2004. This diagram is not intended to portray every active player, nor is it etched in stone. Company position is constantly evolving.
Click
here to download the M2M Market Landscape PDF (125 KB) .
SIGNALSmart™
Technology Framework
The Pervasive Internet begins with data generated by intelligent
devices. It ends with the smart Web services that
automate and optimize manufacturing, marketing, business logistics,
supply chain, and customer service. In between, many complex,
interoperable technologies must come into play.
We created our SIGNALSmart™ Framework
to provide a clear portrait of this technology path, along with
terminology and examples for suppliers
and adopters alike.
Click
here to download our 2-page SIGNALSmart™ Framework diagram (PDF,
368 KB).
Pervasive Internet Venue
Map
Now you can see the entire Pervasive Internet laid out on a
single page—segmented
by market, service opportunities, and example devices.
Click
here to download our Pervasive Internet Venue Map.
Device Networking Hierarchy
Some Internet-connected devices are mobile, others are stationary. Some,
like PDAs and mobile phones, deliver full value only when given complete
human attention. “Pure” Pervasive Internet devices get no direct
human attention at all.
In this diagram, we place devices along the
“human-centric” / “device-centric” continuum,
give examples of each type, and suggest deployment figures for 2005.
Click
here to download our Device Networking Hierarchy diagram.
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Our title means many
things
Invisible forces running through water. Electricity running through wires.
The many wireless signals in the air all around us. And all the things (“current
events”) that are happening right now.
“Currents” was also the title of a publication series we
did some years ago. There was no Web when we started it. Very few of
our subscribers even had email. Today we have better ways to share our
thoughts and news. But in casting about for a newsletter title, nothing
sounded better than our own legacy, so “Currents” is back.
And there’s one other reason: Mark Twain.
The passenger who could not read it was charmed with a peculiar
sort of faint dimple on [the river’s] surface, but to the pilot
that was an italicized passage ... for it meant that a wreck or rock
was buried there that could tear the life out of the strongest vessel
that ever floated. In truth, the passengers who could not read this
book saw nothing but pretty pictures in it, whereas to the trained
eye these were not pictures at all, but the most earnest of reading
matter.
—Life on the Mississippi
Anyone can see the ripples on the surface of the water. The expert
eye reads the currents beneath.
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The Revolution Will Not Be “Productized”: Notes from the First M2M Expo and Conference
The M2M / Pervasive Internet era has now officially begun. Ultimately, it will be much bigger and more profound than the PC era.
But it will also be a harder sell, partly because you won’t be able to see it, touch it, or look at pictures of it in a catalog.
Download this essay in printable PDF format (90 KB).
You could feel the pioneer spirit in the air last week at the inaugural M2M Expo and Conference in Dallas, TX. People who had worked long and hard without much public glory suddenly found themselves in the midst of the first-ever formal event devoted not only to their dream but to the rapidly forming real-world market for their dream. It really was like watching history in the making, or being present at the birth of an era.
More than a few people compared it to the feeling of major revolution that they remembered from trade shows in the early days of the PC, thirty and more years ago. It did feel like that. But regarding that comparison to the PC, there are vital differences that should not be forgotten:
- M2M technologies will penetrate the world far more deeply—and change the world far more profoundly—than did the technologies of the PC era. But it will do so pervasively, ubiquitously, invisibly, and that’s a much different thing.
- M2M does not arrive in the world as a distinct, perceivable product operating in a distinct, controlled environment. You don’t buy into it the way you buy a PC running a specific desktop OS. In fact, M2M doesn’t arrive in the world as distinct or perceivable, period. It “hits the market” in about a million different ways, most of them designed not to be directly perceivable by humans.
That said, the excitement was real and justified. M2M Expo left all the dreamers pinching themselves and finding that it wasn’t a dream. A revolutionary new technology “space” full of amazing opportunities really does exist, and things in that space are finally beginning to move forward. M2M has “tipped” and begun to roll.
That does not mean, however, that it will now snowball massively, all by itself. The M2M / Pervasive Internet era is all about automation, but there’s nothing “automatic” about the way it will happen. It will arrive in the world as a pervasive “cloud” of new technological and business synergies. They will come into existence by careful design, not by sheer momentum. First of all, the major technology building blocks of those synergies must be brought into alignment. And so far, only the very first of those building blocks—networkable devices—has received sufficient attention. The building blocks include:
- Intelligent, networkable devices which are the result of product innovators making the decision to build sensing, intelligence, and connectivity into manufactured objects—cars, medical devices, the concrete walls of buildings, you name it.
- Global network access geared specifically for autonomous devices rather than human-operated products.
- New middleware created specifically for the management and mining of billions and trillions of daily device-generated data-points.
- New applications that will at first enhance and then replace existing enterprise knowledge apps. These new apps will flow middleware-massaged machine data into existing and new IT infrastructures to “automate the enterprise.”
In the world of M2M / Pervasive Internet suppliers, the alignment of these major elements will require many creative business alliances to seize at least the most obvious value-add opportunities, and to provide end-to-end real-world solutions.
The whole idea of connected devices automating the world has been so long in coming that the basic plumbing task of getting devices connected has dominated the agenda and discussion. As we’ve said here before, this has led to a kind of tunnel vision that has often kept suppliers from seeing the world from the adopter perspective.
Devices talking to and controlling each other will someday bring us to the next great Wonder of the World—complete global automation. But from the perspective of an adopter CEO, “talking devices” are not much more than a high-tech parlor trick until they actually change the way a business operates in the real world.
Last week’s M2M Expo and Conference was designed to bring together many diverse constituent groups across the landscape of pervasive computing and device networking. It accomplished that goal admirably. We predict that the Expo’s reverberations will be felt throughout the year in the form of key partnership and licensing announcements, not just “new product” announcements.
Download the above essay in printable PDF format (90 KB).
Harbor Research welcomes your feedback. Send it to feedback@harborresearch.com.
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Your secret weapon has arrived. Announcing a totally new kind of business research experience.
Harbor’s new online platform for research services offers continually updated intelligence and stunning data-visualization.
Static, printed reports can’t track the complex ecosystems and warp-speed pace of high tech. SmartSphere® projects can.
The brains of the Web. The brawn of server databases. The beauty of a CD-ROM.
For nearly ten years, we’ve been waiting for Web media to get good enough to let us do this. It’s finally here. Harbor SmartSphere® re-invents the whole concept of delivering research value. It’s to business research what the Pervasive Internet will be to business itself: a huge injection of dynamic intelligence and sheer voltage. SmartSphere® is online, interactive, dynamic, and visualized. There’s nothing static, rigid, or dead about it. Eventually, we at Harbor will do everything in SmartSphere® that we used to do on paper, and we’ll do it better. And you can, too. in a custom-configured project of your own, SmartSphere® can be anything you want it to be.
And yes, you can get printed reports. We’ve re-invented those, too. Not fixed, one-size-fits-all printed reports, but custom printed reports that you configure and SmartSphere® creates for you on the fly in PDF format.
See SmartSphere® and find out more right now:
- Visit our free, live SmartSphere® demonstrations. They say pictures are worth a thousand words. What are they worth if they’re pictures of your whole world, and you can fly around inside the pictures with your mouse?
- Download a brochure on the SmartSphere® research platform and services (PDF, 970 KB).
- Download a brochure about our SmartSphere® “living research” projects on the M2M/Pervasive Internet phenomenon (PDF, 240 KB).
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A small portion of an interactive Harbor SphereMap™. This one portrays a company’s world. You “fly around” the map by dragging it with your mouse, bringing into focus any area you want to explore. You see a company’s peers, investors, products, and alliance-structure at a glance.
Clicking nodes fetches additional information from the database. Shift-clicking nodes creates new maps of other companies—and maps of markets, too.
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Projects, projects, projects. Ours, and yours.
SmartSphere® is an online platform that Harbor uses to deliver Web-based services. You don’t buy SmartSphere® the way you buy
a program for your computer. You buy access to one or more SmartSphere® projects. We define projects of our own on important high-tech subjects, and clients can subscribe to those projects. Clients can also define their own custom (and completely private) projects.
SmartSphere® projects are laser-focused on their subjects. No waste, no fluff, no irrelevance. A SmartSphere® project delivers continually updated information on whatever the project has been defined to track. Some of that information is created in the good old-fashioned way, by experienced researchers and analysts. And some of it is created with 21st century tools like automated news feeds and Web-based info services. Every time you log in to a project, there’s new information—freshly tracked events, new company alliances, new company and market comparisons, enhanced company, market, and technology profiles, and insightful Harbor commentary and analysis.
When you visit our SmartSphere® demonstrations, you’ll see limited versions of our own projects. Currently, they include Pervasive Internet Suppliers, Smart Buildings, Smart Power, Wireless Sensor Networks, and Cluster Computing. Bear in mind that the full versions of these projects include vastly more information than the limited demonstration versions. The “Pervasive Internet Suppliers” project, for example, was created to replace and improve our own earlier online publication, Pervasive Internet Report.
The “Cluster Computing” demo is a brand-new project, featuring content developed in association with Barrington Partners. We’re very excited about our new alliance with Barrington. Together, we plan to develop SmartSphere®-based research on several important new technology growth areas, in both multi-client and single-client formats. (If the “Cluster Computing” project in particular interests you, send us mail or call us.)
Custom SmartSphere® projects. Your secret weapon has arrived.
You’ve heard about some of our SmartSphere® projects. Now let’s talk about yours. Does your company have business development, M&A, R&D, or sales and marketing goals? We hope the answer is yes. How would you like “living business intelligence”™ on the companies that interest or worry you? Or on the markets and technologies that are defining your future? A custom SmartSphere® project is the perfect way to do that. “Living business intelligence”™ means research that is laser-focused on your targets, and continually updated for as long as you need it.
Any collection of companies, markets, or technologies can become the backbone of a SmartSphere® project. You define who or what they are. You define what you want to track about them, and how you’d like to rank or score or weight them. You define the types of cross-company or cross-market comparisons you’d like to see.
You need Flash to use Harbor’s site and our SmartSphereŽ demos. It’s free and easy. Get it here.Take action and take control.
If you’ve read this much about SmartSphere® without clicking something, it’s time to click. Here are those links once again.
- Visit our free, live SmartSphere® demonstrations.
- Download a brochure on the SmartSphere® research platform and services (PDF, 970 KB).
- Download a brochure about our SmartSphere® “living research” projects on the M2M/Pervasive Internet phenomenon (PDF, 240 KB).
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Vote on key Pervasive questions and get our community’s opinions instantly.
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What do your colleagues and customers
think about key Pervasive issues? Find out, fast and free.
Harbor’s site visitors are technologists and business leaders with
the same thing on their minds: Internet-enabled device networking, smart
services, and enterprise automation.
Our Polling Booth lets you can tap into
this unique community in a very real and valuable way. Cast your
own vote on a key Pervasive question and see all votes charted in
real time. (Click “Vote!” in the site’s navigation to get there.) You can vote only once on each question, but you can
come back any time to see the latest results. You can even cite
the polling data in your own site pages or publications—providing you
credit Harbor Research as the source.
We’ve started with a handful of questions about
core Pervasive issues, and we’ll add more regularly. Do you
want community opinion on something we haven’t asked about?
We welcome suggestions for the Polling Booth at feedback@harborresearch.com.
Visit our site
and try out the polls and charts. Click “Vote!” in the main navigation.
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