If you’re trying to figure out how big the impact of Smart Systems and the Internet of Things could be, just start adding up the annual product revenues of the largest manufacturers on earth. By the time you sum the top dozen diversified companies, you’re over a trillion dollars. That’s…

When we read Internet of Things commentary by our colleagues in the consulting profession, we’re often perplexed by the two-by-two charts they have showing company activity. The upper right-hand corner of the upper right-hand box—the “magic quadrant”—is usually empty, and the favored firms are clustered in the upper right-hand corner…

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 were talking about. Now everybody knows what we’re talking about, and many companies are trying to take part in it, but “giving the world…

Harbor Research has long examined the evolution of Smart Systems in intelligent buildings. During all our time observing the space, siloed, vendor-specific solutions have always been the norm in building automation, leading to unnecessary inefficiencies for customers. In order for OEMs, service providers, and building managers to harness equipment data…

Smart City programs cannot be defined by a single “top down” approach or central organizing schema that sets preprogrammed limits. They will be defined by individual citizens, who are motivated to collaborate with each other to create new use cases and applications that solve specific local problems. Smart cities will…

The IoT is a distributed computing challenge. Smart Systems and IoT deployments are by their very nature distributed systems. We hear lots of talk about the “cloud” as it relates to the IoT to the point that in many cases it seems like the “cloud” is being presented as the…

We have portrayed a vision of smart energy driven by real-time, interactive communication networks that provide services and are adopted in a manner very similar to the evolution of the web and the Internet. In this vision, customers and consumers would be able to see variable pricing changes in real…

Many IT equipment suppliers, silicon suppliers, enterprise software players and wireless carriers have re-elevated their interest in the Smart Systems and Internet of Things arena because of the arrival of 5G wireless technologies.  Many of these players are “old hands” having focused on connected opportunities for some time and many…

The “Smart Home” has always had the potential to unleash unprecedented value for comfort and convenience as well as safety and security.  The sheer volume of manufacturers, service providers and tech companies addressing the residential arena is a testament to its potential. However, today’s smart home market remains fragmented with…