Until quite recently, “real-time” or time-sensitive networking existed only in unique domains where applications demanded extremely precise timing and synchronization: Robotic manufacturing, machine vision, automotive infotainment, smart transportation, oil drilling, space exploration, and the like. The protocols were proprietary and technically difficult, and were often fine-tuned specifically to mission and…

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 intelligence (AI) in a comprehensive offering that better enables manufacturing and services industry workers to perform their jobs. Augmentir leapfrogs the current Enterprise AR…

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 partners. It goes without saying that such a culture does not blend well with the notions of openness, transparency, and trust.

To date, most of the successful platform businesses are “consumer” or “user” focused. Fewer B2B markets have embraced this type of business model. We predict this will soon change. Freight logistics, genetic sequencing, order management, and asset management are examples of new beachheads for platform models in the B2B sector.

Fathym is uniquely positioned at the intersection of these three evolutions: batched, wireless, and embedded. None of their competitors has been able to bend their story away from the supply-side technical development cultures, and this prevents them from clearly seeing this future. Fathym’s value is rooted in helping businesses evolve,…

As more and more companies delve into developing smart systems, they are quickly finding that competitive differentiation shifts away from unique, vertically focused product features. The new focus will be on how the product is actually used—how it fosters interactions between and among users in a networked context.

The new generation of software will require open information flows and shared data. Creating an unbroken circle of data and information value based on the integration of people, processes, and relationships across new ecosystems will become the “holy grail” of smart systems.

Note to OEMs venturing into software: Those millions of lines of code are a whole different animal. They’re not a physical good like the things you know and build. They’re also not easy to create, price, sell, or support, and you’d better not confuse them with your existing business.

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…