TMCnews Featured Article

We have all heard the phrase “The Internet of Things,” but, like so many other buzzy phrases, it means different things to different people. I recently had a chance to speak to Shahid Ahmed, managing director with Accenture (News - Alert) and head of the North American Network Practice and Communications Industry division at the company. We talked about his trip to Nevada for CES, the state of the M2M space, and more.

First, Ahmed spoke about what brought him to CES this year, and he noted that CES (News - Alert) has morphed into an event focused on connected devices, from home automation to consumer electronics. These days, he said, consumer technology needs to be connected. If you have a standalone device, that won’t hold up in this marketplace. Everything from audio to video and more needs to be connected to a cloud infrastructure. It’s no longer about physical devices in a world where people can hear a song, figure out what it is and own it in a matter of seconds.

On the topic of “The Internet of Things,” Ahmed talked about the broad range of elements the concept covers. He stated that it entails everything from smart meters in your home to sensors on your brake pads and more. All of the information from those sensors feeds into big data analytics engines, producing useful results. These solutions can tell us when we need new brake pads, how much power we’ll use in the future, and even the best time to breed our cattle!

According to Ahmed, there are several challenges facing companies in the M2M space these days. For device makers, a big challenge is the need to deal with different certifications and compliance regulations. In order to work in different verticals, manufacturers must meet stringent requirements that vary widely. For network providers, the challenge is to deal with security and reliability at the same time. They need to address latency issues, for example, as these solutions demand minimal delays. Finally, he states that the aforementioned big data analytics challenge is important. So much information is coming in, and it needs to be processed efficiently. Companies that can make sense of all of the data, correlating and managing the information, will have a leg up.

Want to learn more about M2M technologies? Don’t miss the M2M Evolution Conference, collocated with ITEXPO Miami 2013, Jan 29- Feb. 1 in Miami, Florida.  Stay in touch with everything happening at M2M Evolution Conference. Follow us on Twitter.