The Internet of Things, already a $665.8 billion dollar business, is slated to hit $1.7 trillion dollars by 2020. “That’s a lot of new stuff to take advantage of,” Jim Davis of SAS told a full house at WRAL’s Internet of Things event Tuesday morning.
“There really is a tremendous opportunity out there,” he added.
Davis noted that while we’ve all heard of the connected home with lights, toasters and refrigerators connected to the web, the Internet of Things encompasses much more.
For instance, he said, “Look at the modern oil well out there in the North Sea. If it goes down, it costs the owner millions of dollars a day. Data that can be streamed off the platform and run through analytics could predict a potential failure – and help you understand what other parts are likely to fail along with it.”
Cars talk to each other
Or, he noted, “Look at the Boeing 707, one of the most connected devices in the world with 40 terrabytes of data an hour. What can you do with that? Use it to monitor what the plane is doing, fuel efficiency, see parts about to fail. I don’t know about you,” Davis said, “but I want that part fixed before I board the airplane.”
Now we also have connected cars. “Insurance companies love those,” Davis said. “They can set your rates according to your driving habits.” But all that data could also help increase fuel efficiency, and help drivers avoid traffic jams via route optimization.
He noted that cars can even talk to each other, so that one ahead can warn one behind about an icy patch in the road. And, “You’re going to hate this,” Davis said, “It creates a real customer management opportunity. We know about you and where you are so we can market to you based on your location.”
There is so much software in cars it’s a bit of a danger in ways, he said. “The average new vehicle has 100 million lines of code – which presents lots of potential for defects (or cheating, as in the current Volkswagen scandal. By comparison, the Large Hadron Collider has only 50 million lines of code and Facebook, 60 million.
Speaking of cars, he pointed out that services such as ride-sharing Uber “have changed the world.” Uber’s value exceeds that of major companies such as General Mills and Halliburton.
Challenge: what to do with the enormous amount of data?
Davis summed up one of the major difficulties with the Internet of Things. One of the big challenges is the enormous amount of data streaming from sensors. “How do you determine what data is relevant and how do you decide that in a cost efficient manner?”
He asked, “Is it the Internet of Things or the Analytics of Things? IoT is big and it’s here to stay, so now we need to know how to understand all that data. How do we store it cost effectively and quickly? Then, can it be analyzed in the same location?
In many applications the data has to be analyzed quickly, almost instantly. “If you want to capture a person walking by a store, you need that data immediately,” Davis said.
All that is why “Analytics has never been hotter. Predictive modeling, hot, hot.”
In a panel discussion following his remarks, Lawrence Steffann of the Wireless Research Center of North Carolina, noted that both the number one and number two analytics companies (SAS and IBM respectively) are in the Triangle. Others noted the RTP also has a strong telecom and wireless infrastructure, and all the elements it takes to be a major player in the IoT world.
Putting it all together requires the following elements, Davis concluded:
Leadership, transparency, and process. “Leaders have to be on board, and everyone needs to understand what data can do to support their activities. Data is an asset.”
