by Patrick Seitz, Investors Business Daily

For years, technologists have talked about the coming age of IoT, or the Internet of Things.   For every person on the internet doing work or being entertained, a multitude of machines are automatically reporting device location, temperature, speed and other status data online. About 4 billion people use the internet. But that number is dwarfed by the roughly 12 billion devices sending data over the internet, often with little or no human intervention.

And the movement is just getting started. Research firm IHS Markit expects the number of machines linked to the internet to more than quadruple, reaching 55 billion, by 2025. That leaves a lot more room to run.

“We’re just starting to move out of the pilot phase,” IDC analyst Carrie MacGillivray said.

Tech companies big and small are scrambling to make their mark in the still-emerging IoT field, which promises to be a huge financial opportunity. They range from chip companies selling sensors and processors for IoT devices to software firms that want to store and analyze data collected from those billions of devices.

IDC predicts that spending on IoT hardware, software and services will reach $1.2 trillion by 2022. That compares with $630 billion in 2017. IDC sees the market posting a compound annual growth rate of 13.5% over that period.  “It will reach critical mass by 2020,” IDC’s MacGillivray said.

One analyst expects the number of machines linked to the internet to more than quadruple, reaching 55 billion, by 2025. (©Dave Culter)

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Some niches are well into deployment, such as smart meter readers. Instead of sending out workers house to house to record water, gas and electricity usage, devices transmit that data directly to the company.

The basic building blocks of the Internet of Things are connectivity, distributed computing and platforms, IHS Markit’s Short said. Those building blocks are available today, but companies are still sorting out best practices.

“They’re not sexy to talk about, but they are legitimately transformative,” he said.

Whichever companies can establish the leading software platforms and ecosystems will win the market, Short said.

IHS Markit is tracking over 400 different IoT software platforms now covering connectivity, applications and data exchange. Customers are having to mix and match from a dizzying array of offerings to make complete IoT systems.

Short expects to see major players like Microsoft acquiring smaller software firms so they can build out their Internet of Things offerings and reduce the complexity of systems. Security for those systems also is a major concern that’s being addressed.

“Obviously there is going to be a lot of consolidation as those companies get bought up,” he said.

The way Zebra sees it, the business of Internet of Things involves three steps: sense, analyze and act. Sensors report the status of inventory or equipment, systems analyze the data and then businesses take action based on what they interpret from the data.

The next step for the Internet of Things will involve artificial intelligence and automation of responses to the collected data.

The exciting part of the industrial Internet of Things will come when companies start analyzing all the data they are collecting from IoT devices to garner useful insights to improve their operations, Short says.

That means going beyond simple asset tracking into data mining and simulations using artificial intelligence.

“When you start to implement multiple of these technologies is where you start to see the power,” Short said.

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From Business Insider:

Here are some key takeaways from Business Insider report:

• We project that there will be more than 55 billion IoT devices by 2025, up from about 9 billion in 2017.
• We forecast that there will be nearly $15 trillion in aggregate IoT investment between 2017 and 2025, with survey data showing that companies’ plans to invest in IoT solutions are accelerating.
• The report highlights the opinions and experiences of IoT decision-makers on topics that include: drivers for adoption; major challenges and pain points; deployment and maturity of IoT implementations; investment in and utilization of devices; the decision-making process; and forward- looking plans.