Traditionally, creating value with durable goods meant identifying lasting customer needs and providing a quality service or product to meets those needs. As a technology stabilized, new market entrants established a foothold, consumers became savvier, price wars became commonplace, and the race to the bottom began. Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, this trend has repeated itself over and over.

The Internet of Things (IoT) movement is upon us all. Devices all around us from the home to the factory are becoming connected to the Internet. For durable goods manufacturers, opportunities abound to create an IoT solution that captures new sources of revenue, reduces expenses, and better engages with customers who are increasingly hungry for quantitative information about the devices and environments around them. For enterprises this is both an exciting and terrifying time, as the opportunity to monetize the value of data has never been greater and the threat of new market entrants has never been higher.

The ability to connect, remotely manage, and monitor networked devices via the internet, known as the “Internet of Things” has created one of the biggest threats and opportunities for product manufactures in recent memory.

However, building an IoT solution is complicated. Sensors, short-range RF networks, gateways, security concerns, web services, information technology (IT) maintenance and monitoring, web and mobile application development, and enterprise integration are all parts of the system that must be solved. Enterprises seeking to enter the IoT space often have expertise in building durable goods, but not networking, sensor networks, or IT. Additionally, these enterprises are often very diverse, with numerous divisions, product families, and business models that only further complicate the already-complicated world of IoT.

Develop a Prototype

A marathon is run one step at a time, and a connected product development is no different. At first, the ideal framework and set of technology selections may not be clear-cut. In these cases, the first step should be to develop a prototype that can be used to frame out the necessary parameters and understand the pinch points of your IoT product deployment. The prototype should be end-to-end and include a thin thread that connects the sensor through the device, network, cloud, end-user interface, and enterprise integration.

Atmel® Corporation, a global leader in microcontroller (MCU) and touch solutions launched the Atmel IoT Cloud Ecosystem Partner Program. The new program enables IoT product developers to access the Exosite Ready™ commercial-grade embedded code on qualified Atmel SmartConnect products. This allows developers to access device management, data analytics, and visualizations tools in order to experience an end-to-end IoT solution development environment ‘out of the box’.

Adding IoT to your product roadmap has many benefits, but as with any high-reward opportunity, the risks associated with entering the IoT space can be equally as high. In addition to the IoT challenges you may face when developing an IoT strategy along with tactics on how to address them, we have also identified the following pitfalls enterprises may be susceptible to when seeking to deploy an IoT solution:

Industry experts estimate there will be 20+ billion connected products online by 2020, representing an overall IoT market size of $200+ billion. Other studies have predicted much higher growth, suggesting the annual IoT global economic value will exceed the US GDP by 2025. Either way, the number is big and new businesses, business units and products will form and prosper by taking only a fraction of the market share.
However, in order for the IoT industry to live up to the hype, diverse enterprises with complex business models must begin to contribute new, innovative product offerings to the IoT market. Those interested in taking advantage of this face a number of exciting opportunities for growth, differentiation, and discovery that should be identified and fully explored.

Call it what you will - IoE, IoT, or M2M - but it is undeniably here. And, it is suddenly the “thing” on every major corporate executive's mind, as it very well should be. A recent economic survey suggested that 95% of respondents expect their companies to be using IoT within 3 years, and 65% think companies without an IoT strategy will fall behind in the market.

On March 19^th, Exosite will take center stage at this year’s IoTFuse event to present on two topics: Five Phases of IoT: A Market Maturity Model for the New Connected Device Economy and CoAP: The IETF’s New Protocol for the Internet of Things.

IoTFuse is a conference that is geared to spark the Internet of Things (IoT). It will unite accomplished doers, makers, and hackers with the brightest executives, entrepreneurs, and innovators. The event will look at where IoT is today, where it is headed in the future, and how technology can be used to improve the physical world in which we live.

Minnesota is home to some of the largest brands in the world. Companies like 3M, Target, Best Buy, and Medtronic all have roots here. But Minnesota is also home to some of the most innovative tech companies in the market. In the technology-driven world in which we live, this economic strength has become increasingly important as consumers and enterprises not only rely on, but demand, seamless integration of technology throughout their daily lives.

Each year, the international Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas sets the stage for the latest technology developments and trends. While CES 2014 was dominated by the “ultra HD” 4K curved TVs, predictions suggest that the Internet of Things (IoT) will not only steal the show at CES 2015, but will also be the next evolution for the Internet.

Exosite has expanded its technology footprint in the Minneapolis area as a fast-growing Internet of Things (IoT) software company. Since incorporating in 2009, Exosite has consistently doubled in size year after year and recently moved into a larger office space to better accommodate the fast-growing team.

Harmony Enterprises Inc. has spent decades building a great reputation in the waste compacting industry and is now the world leader in the design and manufacture of solid waste equipment.

Exosite worked closely with Harmony to add advanced wireless monitoring capabilities to their SP20 SmartPack® compactors, routing operational sensor data over cellular networks to Exosite's software platform where the data is captured, analyzed, and processed.

At this year’s Sensors Expo, Exosite decided to shake things up a bit. As we know, the Internet of Things (IoT) is a business strategy that carries incredible potential for any company providing a product or service. However, there are many components that must be integrated (e.g., edge node sensors, wireless gateways, transport layers, application software) in order to develop a complete IoT solution. In order to display how these components can work together, we teamed up with our ecosystem partners like Texas Instruments, Verizon Wireless, Anaren, ClearConnex, and California Eastern Laboratories to set up live demonstrations on the show floor.

We are pleased to announce that Exosite was named to CIO Review Big Data 100, a listing of 100 most promising big data companies. Over a span of several months, CIO Review's editorial research team analyzed over a 2000 companies focused on big data and shortlisted companies that are at the forefront of tackling Big Data challenges.