IDC says the IoT will change everything

The Internet of Things (IoT) represents a new construct in the information and communications technology (ICT) world that is occupying the minds of IT vendors, service providers and systems integrators.

According to analysts at IDC, IoT technology and services spending are projected to generate global revenues of $4.8 trillion in 2012 and $8.9 trillion by 2020, growing at a compound annual rate (CAGR) of 7.9%.

“The momentum of the Internet of Things is driven by a number of factors. There is no doubt that business and consumer demand exists and will continue to expand for IoT solutions,” confirmed Vernon Turner, Senior Vice President of IDC’s Enterprise Infrastructure, Consumer, Network, Telecom, and Sustainability Research. “I expect the current IoT use cases are just the tip of the iceberg.”

Turner identified a number of enablers for the rise of IoT, including:

• Ongoing development of smart cities, cars, and houses
• Enhanced connectivity infrastructure
• An increasingly connected culture

Carrie MacGillivray, Program Vice President, Mobile Services, M2M & Network Infrastructure, expressed similar sentiments, noting that the installed base of the IoT will be approximately 212 billion “things” globally by the end of 2020.

This, said MacGillivray, will include 30.1 billion installed “connected (autonomous) things” in 2020. The devices will largely be driven by intelligent systems tasked with collecting data – across both consumer and enterprise applications – by the end of the forecast period.

“It is important to remember that while the market for the Internet of Things is still in its infancy, there is a long legacy of autonomous wired connected things,” MacGillivray concluded. “The enabler for increased growth over the forecast period is the pervasiveness of wireless connectivity and ubiquitous access to the Internet regardless of location.”

IDC’s assessment comes just weeks after Morgan Stanley published a comprehensive report analyzing the rapidly evolving Internet of Things (IoT). Essentially, the report defines the IoT as an “army of tens of billions of tiny robots” making life easier for users on a global scale.

“While this may seem a simplistic definition, in our view it summarizes very well the aim of the Internet of Things. It is like an army of small semiconductor based robots, all connected and able to take decisions on their own or based on higher level decision making. The Internet of Things is the next generation of personal computing, whereby objects interact, potentially independently, with each other and with their environment,” the report (via Barron’s) opined.

“[In reality], this is more of an historical definition, as it positions the Internet of Things as the next evolutionary step for personal computing […] The Internet of Things is the combination of sensors, actuators, distributed computing power, wireless communication on the hardware side and applications and big data/analytics on the software side. This is more of a functional definition, but it shows that there are many prerequisites for the Internet of Things to exist.”

As previously discussed on Bits & Pieces, the IoT represents perhaps the greatest potential growth market for semiconductors over the next several years. And that is why Atmel remains focused on designing the absolute lowest power sipping products, particularly with regards to microcontrollers (MCUs).

Simply put, Atmel MCUs are designed to deliver maximum performance and meet the requirements of advanced applications. That is why we offer highly integrated architecture optimized for high-speed connectivity, optimal data bandwidth and rich interface support – making them ideal for powering the smart, connected products at the heart of the IoT.