In less than two weeks, the first M2M Expo and Conference will be held in Dallas, TX, on April 13-15, 2004. Harbor Research is proud to co-sponsor this important event. As we prepare to head for Dallas, we’d like to address two questions: Why M2M Expo? and Why now?

M2M Expo is About Business, Not Just Technology
Previous M2M-related conferences have focused largely on specific technologies. M2M Expo is quite different. It does offer a technology track, and many key suppliers will be on hand to explain their offerings. But the Expo is the first M2M event to embrace the entire phenomenon, and to put much of its focus on the business opportunities and challenges presented by the technology. We’ll detail some Expo offerings in a moment, but first: Why now?

To put it simply, M2M technologies have finally matured to the point of generating a wave of initiatives inside both product companies and suppliers of networking and knowledge-management tools. M2M Expo is occurring now because it has become imperative that technologists and business leaders meet to understand each other and to prepare for the paradigm-shift in business models and customer relationships that global device networking will bring to the enterprise.

Findings of Harbor’s Latest Study
Harbor’s most recent study of the phenomenon supports this conclusion with the following findings:

• 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 on the verge of large-scale adoption of these technologies. While this year and next will present some unevenness and uncertainty due to the state of the economy, scaled-back investments in Internet technologies, and the testing of pilot trials, there is nonetheless 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. However, despite initial activity across all venues, we believe that adoption will still be account-driven, not segment-driven, in the short term.


• We believe that adoption will occur in three tiers. First-tier adoption includes building, industrial and retail venues. Second-tier adoption includes the power and transportation venues, and third-tier adoption will include venues such as medical and home/consumer.


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


• Many early adopters are now using in-house device networking solutions to address their current needs. However, as robust open technologies develop for sensors, devices and systems, many will view outsourcing as the quickest path to implementing a successful sensor/device networking strategy. We believe that this outsourced networking will evolve over time through three phases: 1) Simple, remote device monitoring; 2) Automated device management; and 3) Enterprise-wide application integration.


• The supplier community today 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 growth curves across market venues. Most suppliers and incorporators are coming to appreciate the scale and scope of alliances required to deploy real, validated solutions for corporate customers, and their participation in M2M Expo will be a significant accelerator.

M2M Expo Offerings
At the M2M Expo and Conference, industry experts will discuss specific markets, M2M applications, business opportunities, and business models, as well as the technologies themselves. Topics covered by specific Expo sessions include:

Business Opportunities and Models

• Companies focused on technology enablement can leverage their expertise into multiple markets. Moreover, the nature of M2M allows them to add value beyond the primary functions of the software or hardware. You’ll learn how these “component” suppliers can thrive in the evolving marketplace.


• Organizations will provide new value with M2M, and adopt new business and profit models to do so. Companies are pursuing models ranging from technology enablement to providing outsourced services. You’ll learn about a variety of new business models in a session led by an expert with experience in multiple markets.


• Firms offering services base their business models on managing a process or creating products more efficiently than their customers. M2M is a catalyst for a sea-change of available services from service providers.


• Experts from various sessions will join with others in a panel discussion of business models, along with audience Q&A.

Markets

• Buildings/Facilities. Building automation is evolving with more open systems and as well as latest wireless technologies. You'll hear about the adoption of M2M in the Building segment from both a supplier and an adopter (user) perspective.


• Power. M2M systems using the latest wired and wireless network technologies, along with data management software, can improve energy management in facilities, factories and utilities, by enhancing power quality and lowering the costs of energy management.


• Retail. Adoption in retail is affected by customer perceptions (e.g., privacy concerns) as well as traditional cost/benefit measurements. Ongoing cost reductions in tag technology are opening up potential applications.


• Healthcare. Adoption in healthcare varies widely by provider. While M2M technologies including wireless offer the promise of faster and more accurate patient record-keeping, an equal or greater benefit can be realized by medical equipment suppliers in reducing costs of maintenance and creating revenue streams with M2M applications. You'll hear about the latest adoption predictions based on technical, regulatory, and legacy system issues.


• M2M adoption is affected by market acceptance, industry standards, and government requlation and policy. Expo sessions will provide an overview of current and future adoption trends in diverse vertical sectors, and the issues surrounding these trends, including security, Internet device services, data management services and sourcing preferences.

Applications

• Panelists will discuss the breadth of significant business opportunities provided by M2M, including asset monitoring and optimization, supply chain integration, security, energy management and power quality.


• Asset management. Asset management has evolved from Computerized Maintenance Management Systems to comprehensive solutions that incorporate real-time device monitoring on one end and linkage to enterprise systems on the other.


• Discrete Process and Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems can all benefit from the latest M2M developments. The possibilities will be discussed from both a vendor and a customer point-of-view.

Technology

• The Expo will cover key technology segments that enable M2M, including wireless, services, data management and device management, as well as application development tools. Panelists will address overall progress, updates on standards and technologies, key success factors, lessons learned, and future trends and drivers.


• Interoperability. The growth of M2M will be fueled by products that can interoperate with others. Hear from an expert on the basis, challenges, and future of interoperability.


• Mesh networking. One of the hottest areas of M2M is the creation of self-organizing, self-healing networks of wireless sensors using mesh technology. Hear from a leading mesh technologist about current and future directions.


• Embedded components. A critical element of the growth of M2M is the ability to design and develop embedded components within other products and systems. An Expo session will explore the status of tools and techniques for this rapidly changing process.


• Legacy systems. While most M2M activities are enabled by new technologies, the ability to integrate with existing legacy systems will become a major value-add. An Expo session will explore the techniques currently available to ensure use of existing assets.


• RFID. The potential of RFID tags embedded in all consumer products will mean trillions of devices enabling product-tracking from manufacturer to consumption and beyond. Hear from RFID experts on the plans for implementation of this pervasive technology.


• Supplier alliances. Business alliance-webs are critical for success with emerging technologies such as M2M. Few companies can do it all. Learn about customer fulfillment models based on alliances among M2M companies.

Getting the Most out of M2M Expo
And finally, here are a few suggestions for getting the most out of M2M Expo. Attendees should be looking for answers to questions like these:

• Supplier ecosystems. Who are emerging as the leading contractors? How can I save money by working with alliances of emerging vendors while also reducing associated risks?


• Customer cases. Who has adopted M2M in my markets, and how, and what has been their ROI so far?


• Movement from products to services. Making products smart and networked enables a fundamental shift to smart services revenue. But that means a customer-centric orientation that is new territory for many product companies. What are the typical organizational and cultural changes that companies face in this process?

We hope to see you there. For more information, and to register, visit the M2M Expo site.

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).

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.