While the title may lead you to think that this a piece which pits the various tech companies against each other, it is not so. For the Internet of Things (IoT) which is fast travelling from obscurity to maturity, there is a new battle on what are the standards that should be in place for this industry pegged to be at $300 billion by 2020.
So, how will all these puzzles fit together? Amidst this mad scramble for the top honours, will the world be able to reach a consensus on these standards. Going by the track record of the tech world, standardization of IoT will be a long drawn out process.
Before we talk on the efforts, it’s important to understand the reason behind these standardization efforts. In the next era of the hyper-networked world, the success of IoT will rely on the devices being able to communicate with each other freely. Now if you have two devices based on different platforms/technologies, they will be redundant unless they are able to communicate with each other. The entire industry is based on the premise of two-way communication between devices.
A recent article by NetworkWorld has neatly listed some of the efforts towards establishing standards for IoT. The biggest fish of them all, Google has already announced Thread, a new networking protocol based on efforts from its Nest branch and few other players such as Samsung Electronics, Silicon Labs, Yale, among others. Then there is Alljoyn developed by Qualcomm, supported by Cisco, Microsoft, LG and HTC. Then there is the Open Interconnect Consortium and Industrial Internet Consortium, again supported by a bevy of tech and telecom giants. The smartphone leader, Apple, is also gnawing away at every possible opportunity.
Growing interest by these tech giants has only highlighted the value of winning the standards race in the industry. Whichever groups are able to set the early standards, will have a profitable lead in this IoT race. The losing fractions will have to follow suit.
It will be interesting to see who sets the standards for IoT, quite literally!
(Photo Courtesy: http://dadallone.deviantart.com/art/Internet-of-things-160576482)
