INSIGHTS & EXPERTISE

Explore our thought leadership.

  • All
  • AI-ML-Data
  • AR-VR-UX
  • Consumer / Residential
  • Digital Twins
  • Ecosystems
  • Energy
  • Future Perfect Tech
  • Growth Strategy
  • Healthcare
  • Industrial & Manufacturing
  • Networks
  • Podcast
  • Resources
  • Retail / Commercial Services
  • Sensors & Devices
  • Smart Buildings
  • Smart Cities
  • Smart Home
  • Socio-Economic
  • Software
  • Strategy
  • Supply Chain / Distribution
  • Transportation
  • Webinar
  • White Paper

The OEM Software Paradox

Software will play the leading role in machine-equipment, device-focused systems, and OEM businesses. Should players buy, build or partner?

Proverbs for the Paranoid

We take an alternative view of technology trends and futures, looking at data, open source, partner ecosystems, Web3, blockchain, AI and more

Designing the Future of Smart Cities Infrastructure

OEMs need to adopt a broader view of non-traditional growth opportunities. These can include emergent innovations that threaten the core business, as well as opportunities to collaborate with customers and partners on new solutions.

Corporate Bumblebees

OEMs need to adopt a broader view of non-traditional growth opportunities. These can include emergent innovations that threaten the core business, as well as opportunities to collaborate with customers and partners on new solutions.

Orchestrating the Digital Future of Air Travel

Innovation Orchestrators will direct the next evolution of air travel, which will rely on digital technologies and collaborative ecosystems

Infrastructure Goes Digital

Tomorrow’s infrastructure combines physical with digital to power a digital nervous system, enhanced connectivity and smart micro grids.

Intelligent Development

With the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), data management and DevEx are being reimagined.

Future Perfect Design

Powerful distributed technologies are demonstrating the power of decentralized systems and reinventing collaboration and design.

Bits to Atoms

Smart Systems products requires the focus to shift away from unique, vertically focused product features to fostering interactions

Hurtling Toward Our AI Future

AI’s value has moved but those seeking it haven’t caught on.

In Pursuit of Performance: Private Cellular Networks

Harbor Research’s new report on the private cellular market, including private networks, private LTE and 5G

The Bumpy Road To Smart Systems Adoption

Mitigating Smart Systems Adoption Risk with Innovative Business Models such as Equipment as a Service

Taming Complexity

The adoption of digital twins has been hampered by the absence of an open-source “digital fabric” for integrating connected devices and their data.

System of Systems

The adoption of digital twins has been hampered by the absence of an open-source “digital fabric” for integrating connected devices and their data.

The Great Tech Reckoning

Mass tech layoffs mean big opportunities for “old school” B2B companies. We look at where laid off tech employees are headed next.

The Cold Chain Market is Heating Up

Cold chain and cold storage is hot right now – this Future Perfect Tech podcast episode features Manik Suri, CEO and Founder of Therma

Pervasive Uncertainty

Technologies are evolving exponentially. Harbor provides a guide for the changes to value creation and growth opportunities in 2023 and beyond.

The Pendulum Doth Swing

The pendulum is swinging back to an era of de-centralization and distribution of resources with Web3 and distributed technologies (IoT, edge computing, blockchain and more) leading […]

The Shifting Sands of OEM Value Creation

Value and profitability are playing a new game of hide-and-seek. They’re still there, but not where they used to be. If you keep looking in the […]

Why Do So Many B2B Data Ecosystems Fail?

B2B hardware, services and equipment players have been trying to create ecosystems for quite some time, but the track record has been abysmal. It’s logical to […]

The Next Big Thing is Not a Thing

The technology hype machine has long been accused of racing ahead of reality. And it’s not a lie that all these isolated phenomena—AI, blockchain, nano-medicine, Web3, […]

Complexity and Contention: The Future of Digital Infrastructure

The shift to truly intelligent distributed digital systems requires a new generation of architectural capabilities that are designed from the ground up. As we end the […]

By Invitation Only: New Rules for OEMs

New rules for navigating Smart Systems innovations will force machine and equipment manufacturers to open up their “walled gardens” and embrace open-source software and collaborative developer […]

Software Futures: How and Why Adobe’s Acquisition of Figma Changes Everything Forever

Adobe acquired the design and collaboration platform Figma for $20 billion. The acquisition is the most expensive SaaS multiple ever paid by a public company. Harbor […]

Creating Versus Destroying Value: The Core Technologies that Inform Smart Systems

Note to traditional product and service companies venturing into digital systems and software: Those millions of lines of code communicating on networks are a whole different […]

Growth Strategy in the Age of Smart Systems

Software and digital technologies are displacing physical hardware and replacing labor-intensive services in nearly every market and application imaginable, and it shows no signs of slowing […]

Smart Systems Redux

“We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the […]

Catalytic Growth Strategies

Harbor Research helps you navigate innovation and value-driving growth strategy in the age of Smart Systems and the Internet of Things.

$1.9 Trillion and the Net Zero Digital Transformation Revolution

Many governments, companies and industries have made pledges to reach net zero, of carbon neutrality, in the coming years. A seismic shift must occur for industries […]

The Innovation Curve and the Hype Cycle

How can we identify and avoid meme technologies? An R&D company challenged an early-stage company to a race: who could get acquired for more than a […]

Growth Lessons from a Venture Capitalist

“We say the best product wins in the market. I think the best product with the best ecosystems win bigger and faster.” - Jennifer Vancini, general […]

Extended Reality Research Brief

The parallel technological evolutions to Smart Systems and Spatial Computing are driving massive enterprise growth opportunities. Download Harbor Research’s brief on extended reality, augmented reality and mixed reality technologies, markets and opportunities to learn the best path forward for your business.

Distributed Energy Resources Research Brief

Download Harbor Research’s report brief on distributed energy resources technologies, markets and opportunities.

The Future of Smart Hospitals

Hospitals are seeking new ways to improve their productivity and efficiency, while reducing operational costs and improving margins. The speed and scale at which medical device and equipment manufacturers are integrating automation and data analytics into healthcare systems is staggering.

Private Networks for Innovation

New private networks (wireless, 5G, LTE, CBRS) promise growth for business and disruption for the traditional wireless carrier model.

The Emergence of Higher Performance Real-Time Private Networking

Where is real-time, mission-critical networking heading? We believe it’s heading to many more places than most people imagine.

Back to the Future of Information

Each groundbreaking new technology is built on the combination of other innovations. Is Web3 the innovation changing society as we know it?

The Death and Disintegration of Conglomerates

With the announcement of the break-up of the General Electric company, the era of diversified industrial enterprises appears to finally be coming to its end.

Private Networks with Nokia and Verizon Webinar

SPEAKER BIOS Doru Calin heads Nokia’s private wireless in the North America’s market. He leverages his broad expertise on cutting-edge technologies (wireless communications, industrial IoT, digital […]

Open Source is Taking Over the World

Open source software innovations have fundamentally changed software development and realization for enterprises around the world.

Creative Destruction and the Advent of Smart Systems Design

As the physical world continues to dovetail with machine learning and artificial intelligence, Smart Systems will enable previously unimagined capabilities for both the B2B and B2C worlds.

Future Proof Smart Farming

Sensors, robots and drones are transforming the agriculture industry. Can data help farming become more sustainable?

It’s Time To Rethink Approaches to New Growth Ventures

“Business as usual” is no longer enough to successfully grow and innovate. OEMs now need to approach venture growth with a creative combination of “build, buy and partner.”

The Spectacular Failure of Software Growth Strategies

For OEMs, software growth strategy is more complicated than the question of, “Build, buy or partner?” Instead, they should look at a combination of all three.

Moving Smart Home Luddites Forward

The keys to unlocking Smart Home ecosystems and catalyzing adoption lie in better alliances, open data and innovative revenue models.

Chaos, Collaboration and Connected Cars

Connected vehicle OEMs need a partner ecosystem of “strange bedfellows” to become the data orchestrators of connected car innovation.

More Than A Meme: NFTs and the IoT

Non-interoperable systems and monolithic control are over.

Inspired by Nature: The Wild World of Biomimicry

Learn how innovations improve when tech mimics nature, including the “wood wide web,” shark skin swimsuits and much more.

A Tale of Two [smart] Cities

Smart cities and open data in a post-platform world.

Capturing the Value of AI

AI’s value has moved but those seeking it haven’t caught on.

Democratizing Connectivity

Real-time connectivity and innovative services will rule the 21st century.

Beyond the Billionaires

More data and coverage are satellite’s future direction.

The Blind Leading the Visually Impaired

Smart Buildings/Grids need interoperable systems.

Revolutionary Road

The new business model of Grid-Interactive Efficient Buildings.

COVID Testing At the Speed of Light

AI diagnostic tools are changing healthcare.

Beyond the Data Economy

Consumer-configurable data privacy is coming.

Smart Buildings Ecosystem Webinar

JOIN US TO EXPLORE AN EXPANDING MARKET Harbor hosted a webinar on the intersection of Smart Buildings and Distributed Energy on June 24th, 2021 from 10-11 […]

The Time Has Come

Innovators are moving to enable future energy systems.

Beyond the Hype

How can you turn customers into innovation partners?

Goodbye Smartphone, Hello Spatial Computing

The smartphone will soon be replaced by AR-enabled smart glasses.

Risky Business

In the game of IIoT, relayr is stealing third base with the business model innovation of sharing risk with its customers.

Designing the Future Network of Networks

Neutroon’s NaaS Platform Breaks Carriers’ Lock on 5G.

Gift That Keeps Giving

New data tools will provide IoT’s “holy grail.”

Clash of the Industrial Titans

From Hannover Fair, new rules for industrial software.

Analytics Is a Journey

SkyFoundry: Open standards and distributed computing are necessities for a rational technological future.

Emergence of Data Orchestration

Visionary OEMs must become orchestrators of data ecosystems.

Electricity Is the New Gasoline

EV charging stations are the bridge between utility power distribution and electric vehicle power consumption.

Extending Reality Webinar

JOIN US TO EXPLORE AN ENORMOUS OPPORTUNITY This Harbor Research webinar will focus on the evolving technologies and business models driving the Extended Reality market, which […]

Connected Complexity

The adoption of digital twins has been hampered by the absence of an open-source “digital fabric” for integrating connected devices and their data.

The Big Chill

Thanks to COVID-19, supply chains have become more complex and cold chains have become increasingly critical.

Invisible Business

Data is driving an autonomous economy.

The Physical Gets Metaphysical

Ready or not, we are hurtling into distributed systems and intelligence.

The Real Edge

Privacy is now vying with latency and real-time requirements as the main driver of edge computing.

Widows and Orphans

The IoT needs a single, unified standard for integrating data from sensors and devices of all types, both at the edge and in the core.

Shared Smart Building Destinies

Smart building suppliers lose value by seeing the opportunity through the lens of aging business models and practices.

Extending Reality: Computing’s Next Incarnation

Extended Reality for the enterprise is about to arrive.

Chaos, Coordination, and Creative Evolution for OEMs

We need to give up on the idea that the IT and Telco players will solve very much of anything and start relying on a new generation of innovators.

Covid and the IoT: A Love Story

In most industries we now have vast amounts of data but little integration into our business systems.

Getting to the Promised Land of Digital Innovation

OEM strategists must imagine the new landscape they will inhabit.

OEM Software Webinar Replay

Rapidly evolving software development and dissemination patterns are radically disrupting the traditional business and revenue models to which OEMs have long been accustomed. EXPLORING AN ENORMOUS […]

God, Guns and Software

Making the “shift to Smart Services” sounds tame but it is actually quite foreign to most OEMs and technology providers.

Emerging Developer Communities

The days of the monolithic app are ending and being replaced by micro re-usable software components.

Smart Industrial Systems

New technologies are reshaping how manufacturing businesses engage with customers and compete. Over the next decade, these technologies will propel innovations that will change the ways we design, work, produce and learn.

Future Proof Computing Lives at the Edge

Distributed systems and edge computing is changing the way the world thinks about how future systems will be architected, but the world has become so dependent […]

Future Perfect Travel

Airlines can become an “innovation orchestrator” for a new travel industry ecosystem.

Mountains of Money

Executives spent 30 years making their businesses as lean as possible. In their zeal, they vacuumed up all the innovation spending.

Augmentir: Transforming Industry with AI-driven Augmented Operations

Harbor Research was recently given the opportunity to examine a new software platform that takes a refreshingly new approach to integrating augmented reality (AR) and artificial […]

We Share Because We Care: Data Ecosystems

In the conservative culture of most manufacturing-based businesses, competitive advantage is usually perceived to lie in ownership, secrecy, control, and sometimes adversarial relationships with suppliers and […]

The Future of High-Performance Networks

We’ve been speaking professionally about pervasive computing and the Internet of Things since the late 1990s when most people in business had no idea what we […]