The cloud rush

The Internet of Things (IoT) is shaping up to be one of the more disruptive market opportunities since the creation of the Internet itself, connecting billions of smart devices around the globe and creating billions — some say trillions — of dollars in product and service opportunities globally.

Because of its significance as both an end market as well as a leading source of innovation in the global technology industry, India will exert considerable influence on the development of IoT.

The country possesses a huge pool of extremely talented engineers that are eager to innovate and create new products in the IoT space.

In one sense, IoT is simply the next logical progression in the consumer electronics industry which leverages the fact that semiconductor and sensor technology inexorably gets smaller, smarter, cheaper and lower-power.

Giant mainframe computers gave way to minicomputers, minis to PCs, PCs to laptops, laptops to tablets and smartphones, and now to wearable devices and countless “things” with wireless connected sensors and processors.

The IoT has a unique advantage that will spawn an entire new generation of innovators. Unlike computers, laptops and smartphones which are designed by multinational corporations with teams of hundreds of engineers assigned to each product, IoT devices are dramatically simpler and can be designed by a handful of bright young engineers working in a garage. With hundreds of new ideas for applications and devices for the IoT being incubated daily, it is critical that developers can quickly test concepts and bring them to market.

Because of the vast scope of the IoT — everything from enterprise applications that analyze real-time data from millions of devices and sensors, to personal fitness and health accessories that communicate over wireless home networks — a common set of tools and technologies are needed.

The driving force behind the development and adoption of IoT is the availability low-cost wireless connectivity that frees products to be anywhere and do anything. Supported by proven technologies such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth Smart, NFC and GPS, efficient radio designs continue to reduce the processing requirements and power needs of countless IoT devices.

These efficiencies, in turn, enable engineers to design, produce and go to market with affordable products that encourage mass adoption.

One of the more important hurdles to overcome to enable the rapid growth of the IoT market is the availability of interoperable standards that will allow products from multiple vendors to discover, connect, and interact with one another regardless of the brand, operating system, platform, device type or transport layer.

This isn’t to say the IoT will not grow without common standards; the consumer electronics industry has thrived even though it seems to take several different remote controls just to watch television these days. But without agreed standards, IoT won’t grow as quickly, and the full potential benefits and rewards of IoT could be delayed by years.

Standards battles are nothing new. Every new technology goes through this phase, but ultimately, the market forces are so strong that companies collaborateThis will be the case in the IoT market as well, so that we will be able to unlock the unprecedented market opportunities for decades to come.

The writer is chairman and CTO of Broadcom Corporation

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