by Exosite, on January 26, 2015
Prior to 2012, the Internet of Things (IoT) industry began to see the potential of Machine to Machine (M2M) communications as it relates not only to traditional “machine” communications, but also to the efficiencies gained in people’s lives by connecting everyday products to the Internet. During the infancy stages of IoT growth, there were few standardizations and off-the-shelf components to leverage, so developers were forced to reinvent the wheel each time a new product was created. From custom network protocols to hardware and web server applications, everything needed to be created from scratch.
Custom solutions can be effective for unique instances, but they are generally expensive and not easily reusable for adjacent industries. Because of this, a problem arose that is identified here as the micro-vertical challenge, as shown below in the graphic depicting the long tail of product design as it applies to IoT.
The long tail of IoT refers to the statistical distribution of a connected products in two dimensions: volume and degree of specialty. Every company hopes to create high-volume, highly adopted products like cell phones, wearables, and tablets. But in reality, the low-volume, more niche products like industrial sensors, factory equipment, medical devices, pumps, motors, and generators will unlock the true potential of IoT.
For additional information on this topic and an in-depth discussion about IoT maturity, check out our Five Phases of IoT white paper.