Sample pages from “The Pervasive Internet Opportunity.” Click the image to download the study brochure.

A brand-new edition of our groundbreaking study
The third edition of “The Pervasive Internet Opportunity” has been completely re-written and restructured, with updated quantitative data and fresh conclusions. You can download a brochure describing the study in detail (PDF, 350 KB).

The 210-page document features chapters on adoption trends and forces in all major markets, market sizing, Pervasive Internet applications, new business models made possible by device networking, and more.

Copiously illustrated with over 90 charts, graphs, and diagrams—most in full color—“The Pervasive Internet Opportunity” also includes 7 detailed appendices describing research goals, methodologies, and survey tools.

Pervasive computing, M2M, wireless sensor networks
Our updated research thoroughly examines the current state of Internet-enabled device networking as we head into 2004. Here is a brief overview of our findings:

• Harbor's analysis of adoption indicates that the technological roadblocks to intelligent device connectivity and management are now largely gone. Numerous innovators have solved most of the difficult "plumbing" issues of device connectivity. Not surprisingly, the business-world roadblocks to sensor integration and pervasive computing are coming down more slowly than the technological ones.


• We are clearly on the verge of large-scale adoption of these technologies. 2003 was a watershed year for recognition of the growth possibility of pervasive computing and wireless sensor networks. Adoption behavior will continue to appear uneven, due largely to the fact that this is an OEM-driven environment. However, there is growing recognition of the opportunity, and a stream of continuous activity across several venues and applications.  


• Each industry venue has unique drivers that are encouraging the adoption of device networking. If 2003 was the year for recognition of the opportunity, 2004-2005 will be characterized by pilots and validation, leading to much broader adoption in 2005-2007.


• We see segment adoption growing in buildings, power, medical, industrial transportation and retail venues. The home/consumer market lags, largely because it is driven by want rather than need, and consumers don’t yet understand the value of networked devices and smart services.


• In all these venues, adoption will be driven largely by OEM and large incorporators who will network their devices to leverage new customer service opportunities.


• The supplier community still lacks structure, with many roles still unclear. However, many suppliers—from emerging to established companies—are increasingly organizing or participating in alliances to build open, interoperable device networking solutions.


• As the supplier community evolves, greater interdependencies and vertically focused alliances will be required to meet demand across market venues. We believe that most suppliers and incorporators are still significantly underestimating the importance of the alliances required to bring real, validated solutions for deployment to the marketplace.

Download a brochure describing the study in detail (PDF, 350 KB).

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:

1. 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?
2. Download a brochure on the SmartSphere® research platform and services (PDF, 970 KB).
3. Download a brochure about our SmartSphere® “living research” projects on the M2M/Pervasive Internet phenomenon (PDF, 240 KB).

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.

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 21^st 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.

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.

1. Visit our free, live SmartSphere® demonstrations.
2. Download a brochure on the SmartSphere® research platform and services (PDF, 970 KB).
3. Download a brochure about our SmartSphere® “living research” projects on the M2M/Pervasive Internet phenomenon (PDF, 240 KB).

Harbor Research and Spinnaker Venture Partners, in association with GEN3 Partners, co-sponsor their second European summit on M2M and pervasive computing.

Our host, Nokia, is the European M2M leader.
In Europe, they really get it about device networking. They know that M2M isn’t just some minor new application for cell phones and PDAs, but rather a new era in asset management, enterprise automation, and smart services. And nobody knows this better than Nokia. In EU countries, Nokia is rapidly becoming synonomous with “M2M”—which can stand for machine-to-machine, mobile-to-machine, or man-to-machine.

We’re very proud to have Nokia as host of our second European summit on M2M and pervasive computing. The summit features a keynote speech by Michael Treacy, Chief Strategist and Co-founder of GEN3 Partners and author of the Wall Street Journal bestseller Double-Digit Growth.

Download a brochure on the Innsbruck, Austria summit, and if you have questions, send us mail or call us.

Our next issue of “Currents” will report on the Innsbruck Summit and provide a downloadable white paper summarizing the results of the meeting.

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.