Guest post by Evan Birkhead.

A new IDC FutureScape offers top 10 predictions for the Worldwide IoT in 2017.  The research evaluates 10 emerging trends and ranks them in terms of their likely impact across the enterprise and the time it will take each prediction to go mainstream (meaning the middle of bellcurve of adoption). 

We took a close look and found that the list provides an excellent starting point for enterprises – particular industrials - that are steadily getting pulled toward the Industrial Internet and need to learn more.  Let’s break it down.

The diagram shows IDC’s 10 predictions. The size of the bubble provides a rough indicator of the complexity and/or cost that an enterprise will incur when acting on the prediction.  The X axis shows the time until a trend becomes mainstream; the Y axis shows the impact on the enterprise organization, with the upper tier showing company-wide impact.  So, for example, #10 IoT Analytics presents the most costly and complex technology issue for organizations and its departmental impact is limited, so its mainstream acceptance won’t occur for a couple more years.

Excerpts of IDC FutureScape: Worldwide IoT 2017 Predictions 

Prediction 1: Open Data Platforms Emerge

By 2018, IDC says the "Open Data Platform" will emerge as the next frontier in platform discussions. We are already seeing this with organizations such as the Industrial Internet Consortium and the OpenFog Consortium, who are specifying open frameworks for IoT computing and communications. While this may cause confusion for early adopters, open platforms will pave the way for mainstream acceptance.

Prediction 2:  LPWAN Conflict

Despite hype on the benefits of Low-Power Wide Area Networks (LoRa, Sigfox, etc.), IDC predicts organizations won’t begin to adopt it for another year due to a lack of QoS – and then only for non-critical applications.  Keep an eye on this space though, as low-power WiFi for IoT sensor-based networks will make sense across many industries.

Prediction 3: Cycle Time Improvements

This one is farthest off in the future but could be the most important because it unlocks one of the key values of the Industrial Internet – more efficient production of products and services. According to IDC, by next year investments in operational sensing through IoT and situational awareness via analytics will deliver 30% in critical process cycle times.

Prediction 4: Blockchain Realized

By unifying data logs for a variety of industries, blockchained services, which typically leverage the cloud, promise to increase productivity and reduce downtime.  For example, manufacturers will be able to share production logs with OEMs and regulators, reducing the time to find information, resolve disputes, verify transactions and expedite deliveries.

Prediction 5: Security Evolves

As we at Bayshore know, industrial enterprises are now addressing the cultural divide between IT and OT. This will lead to a necessary investment in capabilities to protect their production processes and data from cyber attack and privacy breaches. IDC says that in two years more than 75% of device manufacturers will have improved their security and privacy capabilities.

Excerpts of IDC FutureScape: Worldwide IoT 2017 Predictions 

Prediction 6: Industry Growth

IDC puts the initial worldwide IoT industry growth at the end of 2017.  Will that be the beginning of the “hockey stick?”  The initial markets driving the growth will be connected vehicles, insurance telematics, personal wellness, and smart buildings, accounting for $96 billion in spending.

Prediction 7: IoT/IT Services

As adoption of IoT grows, IDC predicts that 75% of IoT adopters will turn to outside firms for help in strategy, planning, development, implementation, and/or management of these initiatives.  Again, this is a trend we can verify from our experience at Bayshore.  We are seeing an increased customer reliance on carriers, cloud providers, systems integrators, machine vendors, and an emerging class of Industrial IoT architectural experts.

Prediction 8: The Edge

While we are still looking for a universally accepted definition of edge computing, there is consensus on its importance in the success of IoT.  IDC says that in two years at least 40% of IoT-created data will be stored, processed, analyzed and acted upon close to, or at, the edge of the network.

Prediction 9: Smart City Assets

At Bayshore, we are seeing the same thing. Metropolitan areas, paced by progressive CIOs in places as diverse as Barcelona, Chicago, and San Diego, are already reaping the benefits of sensor consolidation and analytics.  Look for more and more success stories in areas such as building automation, utilities, traffic management, and data center management. According to IDC, 40% of local and regional governments “will use IoT to turn infrastructure into assets Instead of liabilities” by 2019.

Prediction 10: Analytics and IoT Collide

We agree that this is the mother of all trends. While analytics is the most complex technical and cultural issue, it is clearly the #1 reason to move to the Industrial Internet.  IDC predicts that by 2019, all effective IoT efforts will merge streaming analytics with machine learning trained on data lakes, data marts, and content stores, accelerated by discrete or integrated processors.

Excerpts of IDC FutureScape: Worldwide IoT 2017 Predictions

The Bayshore IT/OT Gateway is used by industrial enterprises to provide IT with visibility into big OT data and to provide OT with access to applications such as advanced IT analytics. Transformation of OT data (Modbus TCP, DNP3, Ethernet/IP, and so on), into formats that can be interpreted by IT analytics programs (JSON, https, http, etc.) will be crucial to this adoption.

This post originally appeared here. 

The IoT has a big security problem. We've discussed it here, here and here. Adding to these woes is a new report on the Top 10 Internet of Radios Vulnerabilities. Yes, radios...because IoT so much more than data, networking, software, analytics devices, platforms, etc. When you're not hardwired, radio is the only thing keeping you connected. The findings come from Bastille who, like many vendors, has a clear commercial, self-serving interest in the findings, but nonetheless, the study is interesting given the fact that the largest DDoS attack ever was executed using "dumb" connected devices. Bastille defines the Internet of Radios as the combination of mobile, wireless, bring your own device (BYOD), and Internet of Things (IoT) devices operating within the radio frequency (RF) spectrum.

The vulnerabilities are:  

1. Rogue Cell Towers (‘Stingrays’, ‘IMSI Catchers’)
2. Rogue Wi-Fi HotSpots
3. Bluetooth Data Exfiltration (tethering)
4. Eavesdropping/Surveillance Devices (e.g. conference room bugs)
5. Vulnerable Wireless Peripherals (mice/keyboard)
6. Unapproved Cellular Device Presence
7. Unapproved Wireless Cameras
8. Vulnerable Wireless Building Controls
9. Unapproved IoT Emitters
10. Vulnerable Building Alarm Systems

In addition to the Top 10 list, Bastille has released results of the “Bastille Internet of Radios Security Poll.” Nearly 300 global professionals took part in the poll, offering a snapshot into enterprise awareness and preparedness of Internet of Radios threats in the workplace. The poll was conducted July 26–August 3, 2016 and was comprised of visitors to the Bastille, KeySniffer and MouseJack websites. The majority of respondents (69%) reported they were employed in the IT and cybersecurity industries. Key takeaways:

• 78% of respondents believe the threat from the Internet of Radios will increase in the next 12 months.
• 50% of respondents believe IoT devices are already impacting security.
• 51% of respondents say their companies have adopted a BYOD policy, but only 24% say the policy is strictly enforced.
• 42% of respondents say their organization has not implemented a BYOD policy at all.
• 47% of respondents say their organization is not currently using a Mobile Device Management (MDM) system, compared to 41% that already have one in place.

 Photo Credit: Sergio Sena 

In a new update to the Worldwide Semiannual Internet of Things Spending Guide, the International Data Corporation (IDC) forecasts that U.S. organizations will invest more than $232 billion in Internet of Things (IoT) hardware, software, services, and connectivity this year. And IDC expects U.S. IoT revenues will experience a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 16.1% over the 2015-2019 forecast period, reaching more than $357 billion in 2019.

The industries leading the way in U.S. IoT investments are Manufacturing and Transportation at $35.5 billion and $24.9 billion, respectively, in 2016. However, Cross-Industry investment, which represents use cases common to all industries, will approach $31 billion this year. The IoT use cases receiving the greatest levels of investment from U.S. organizations across these three industry segments are:

• Manufacturing Operations, which supports digitally-executed manufacturing, or how manufacturers use intelligent and interconnected I/O (input output) tools – e.g. sensors, actuators, drives, vision/video equipment etc. – to enable the different components in the manufacturing field – e.g. machine tools, robots, conveyor belts etc.– to autonomously exchange information, trigger actions and control each other independently.
• Freight Monitoring, which uses radio frequency identification (RFID), global positioning system (GPS), GPRS, and GIS technologies to create an intelligent, Internet-connected transportation system. This system carries out the intelligent recognition, location, tracking and monitoring of freight and cargo through exchanging information and real-time communications via wireless, satellite or other channels.
• Smart Buildings, which utilize advanced automation and integration to measure, monitor, control, and optimize building operations and maintenance. The key concept is optimization – meaning the deployment of a set of integrated control systems capable of adapting in real time to both internal policies and external signals. These systems manage how building equipment operates to use energy in the most efficient and cost-effective way.

Looking across all U.S. industries, these three IoT use cases will receive the greatest levels of investment throughout IDC's forecast. The next three largest IoT use cases in terms of U.S. revenue will be Remote Health Management, Smart Grid (Electricity), and Smart Home. The IoT use cases that will experience the greatest revenue growth in the U.S. over the 2015-2019 forecast period are In-Store Contextualized Marketing, Connected Vehicles, and Insurance Telematics.

"A use case represents a detailed composition of a technology investment that is made to produce a set of end user benefits," said Marcus Torchia, research manager, IoT for IDC's Customer Insights and Analysisteam. "The long term opportunity for IoT vendors is helping to identify and create immediate and residual benefits for end users through their technologies. We see strong opportunities across many industries. For example, in highly instrumented verticals like manufacturing and transportation, large data sets are used to optimize operational processes and extend the life of high capital cost assets. In other sectors like healthcare and consumer, IoT technology is being used to produce benefits that improve quality of life."

While Manufacturing and Transportation will lead the U.S. in terms of overall IoT investments, the Insurance, Retail, and Healthcare industries will see IoT spending levels increasing by 135%, 101%, and 96%, respectively, over the forecast period. In addition to driving some of the largest IoT investments, the Cross Industry segment will also see revenue growth of more than 100% through 2019.

Development for the Internet of Things has grown substantially over the past 12 months according to the newly released Global Developer Population and Demographics Study from Evans Data Corp.  

The number of developers currently working on IoT applications has increased 34% since last year to just over 6.2 million today. In addition, the increase of development for mobile devices, up 14% since last year, has led to smartphones being the most commonly connected IoT platform.  

The study, which combines the industry’s most exhaustive developer population model with the results of Evans Data’s biannual Global Development Survey also provides fresh population data for the four major regions: North America, APAC, EMEA, and Latin America and for more than 40 countries. Population numbers for adoption of the hottest tech areas are also included.  

“We're seeing how in the space of just a year, the possibilities introduced by the Internet of Things has attracted many developers.” said Michael Rasalan, Director of Research for Evans Data Corp.“This transition to IoT, while not without barriers, is rapid, because developers are able to leverage existing knowledge and expertise in complementary technologies like cloud and mobile, to create entirely new use cases. We're also seeing developers branch out from concepts centered on wearables to applications for more complex tasks, seen in the industrial space.”  

For the general developer population, estimates and projections for growth to 2021 show APAC leading the pack with nine hundred thousand more developers than EMEA. Growth in India and China are predicted to keep APAC’s population the highest globally for the next several years.  

The full report can be found here.