Top players. Exam question, make it really easy for you guys, or try to. Intel, Top player in IoT, according to the market report. Is involved in design and manufacturing of integrated digital technology. Yeah, we know that. The company's Internet of Things group segment offers platforms for customers to design products for the retail, transportation, and industrial buildings, home market segments. The Internet of Things group further focuses on establishing an end-to-end architecture that captures actionable information for consumers. And I would add and businesses to that. IBM, they got ranked second. Company is actively investing in R&D with more than 7,000 patents. And the company collaborated with various IoT players to expand its IoT portfolio and offer innovative solutions, as we will see. GE, They were ranked third. The company is focused on providing analytics platform and solutions to help data prediction through real-time analytics to assist the organizations in forecasting better business outcomes and improving their operations. Again, it's operational efficiency. I reached out to GE and asked them if they could come in and be a guest speaker, or if there was a way that we could set up a virtual physical plant and get you guys an assignment where you can go off and run a plant for a week or something, and then you write a two or three page paper about what you learned. And they haven't gotten back with me yet. They make a platform and a product solution much like IBM's, but it's called a Predix. So if you hear the term GE Predix, that's their thing. And I went to their website and checked it out, and I thought, this is really cool. [LAUGH] I've gotta figure out how to get it into the classroom. Now, they did a value chain analysis. I think there are some problems with the arrows in here. [LAUGH] So don't get too caught up on the direction of the arrows. So over here are the IoT node level hardware and software providers. So there's a class of companies that operate in this space, and they produce these products that then feeds into network connectivity, equipment providers, gateway providers, network operators, and so forth. That then, all of that then feeds into the system integrators, software, and service providers that build the whole system. I think all of these arrows, I think should be pointing to system integrator. I'm not sure why it just goes down and ends up with maintenance and support. It seems like it should go, all of this should funnel in the system integrators, that then end up at the end user's site. This is just a recap from the market in markets report. So we've got our driving factors, increasing Internet connectivity, growing penetration of smartphones, adoption of wireless sensors, mainstreaming of cloud computing. We've got our restraints, primarily the common communications standards across platforms. And as I said, I don't agree with the low power efficiencies being a restraint. Opportunities because of significant government funding in various countries around the world. And there is opportunity for comprehensive systems solutions to be delivered, and the challenge is data and privacy issues. So we're going to have fun in our securities section. That's going to be a fabulous two weeks, yes? >> So the low power, that seems like that's cleared for the wireless option? because otherwise, if it's hard-wired in a plant, you don't really care so much about the battery efficiency. But if they're going to consider that, then another concern I think is that pricing and the data plans for the wireless options. because it seems like all that is pretty expensive at about $10 a year per device is the cheapest that I found. And as you're trying to deploy a bunch of these devices, now you're adding a bunch of additional expenditure just to get your data. >> From the data from where to where, though? >> So if you're going for a full wireless, I guess Wi-Fi, it's fine. But usually if it's Wi-Fi, it's in an area and you can run power to it. But if you're trying to maybe to play a bunch of centers and some field and you have to rely on the cellular networks for that, then it seems like they haven't really figured out a economical pricing system that makes it worthwhile. >> Perhaps. Yeah, I could see this being a bigger deal in, say, a smart oil field, than it would be inside a manufacturing plant. Because your distances are smaller and the wireless sensors only have to transmit to the gateway, which are then probably wired into the server where the platform runs. >> Yeah. >> All right, I'll buy that. Other comments, yes? >> On the list of top players for the IoT market, did Amazon not make the list because it was multiple consumer? >> It was tiny little letters up here. [LAUGH] Sorry, I just skipped over that. Cisco is huge, Amazon Web Services is enormous, Microsoft is a significant player as well, SAP, and others. But this was the opinion of the folks that put the market research together. And it's a snapshot in time, this was from 2016. This whole entire segment is incredibly fluid and moving around. It's on the move, it isn't a static thing. And we may see new players arise that might give these companies, these large established companies, a run for their money. It's always possible, yes? >> So GE's run into some trouble recently. Their stock is just plummeting. And there are rumors that they're planning on selling off some of their subsidiaries. I don't know much about it, but I was wondering if you see them trying to stay in the IoT sector, or if you knew maybe they're thinking about leaving the sector. I don't know if you knew anything about that. >> I don't have any information on that, so I can't answer it. But it's interesting. Thanks for bringing it up. It's incredibly competitive, for sure, so it can be a challenge. Other questions? Okay. Just back to RTI, data from them, you can go out, and there's a bunch of interesting information out there at this site. They asked, what are the greatest barriers inhibiting businesses from adopting the industrial Internet? And one that jumps out at the top is interoperability or standards, which market to markets also identified. We've got this mish mash of all these legacy communication protocols and new and emerging protocols, and they're all vying for position. The color code is overall North America and Europe that we can see that had a pretty big concern with that. And then pretty much right on it's, I'll use a horse racing analogy, they're neck and neck. Security concerns is huge. This one surprised me a little bit, uncertain return on investment. That's what ROI, CROI. Again, business managers, they're going to make a capital outlay. They're going to buy a bunch of equipment, and they're going to install this system. They want to know what their return on investment is. And so at the time when this was taken, and they don't have the date when this was taken, they were apparently fairly concerned about their return on investment. And you can read those other ones. >> Difference between security concerns and the privacy concerns, it's the privacy concern that now there's all this data out there and it can be subpoenaed, which might not be in the best interest of the company. >> Yeah, and following all the countries' laws for privacy because the privacy rules changed, are different in the US than they are in, say, European Union, versus in India, versus China, versus wherever. These security concerns [INAUDIBLE] getting hacked, I think. These are, well, yeah, getting hacked and leaking information. And these privacy concerns are probably about meeting the local laws. To implement and be compliant with the laws of the country in which they're operating. And they didn't seem to have very much of a concern about lack of skilled worker data scientists. Yeah, I'll talk more about that later when we get into machine learning. Here's another one from our TI. How likely are the following risks or negative consequences associated with the industrial Internet? And again, these are extremely likely and very, very likely. So security vulnerabilities due to connectivity to the global network, [LAUGH] yeah, and they should be concerned. Disruptions in business are model. Disintermediation, I don't even know what that word means. That's beyond my vocabulary, I don't know what that word means. But disruptions in business model, I understand that. So it's upsetting the way they did business. They've always done things a certain way. They're familiar with it. They're comfortable with it. They understand it. Now we have this new system in place and so I could see how it would look like it could represent a disruption of their business operations. >> So I think disintermediation is like car dealerships, whereas people buying cars straight from a manufacturer, there's an intermediary that's being removed. Same thing with Walmart or big stores like that, the intermediaries, there were corner stores, and Walmart kicked all of them out. >> Yes, okay. Thank you. >> Yeah. >> All right, I learned something. Woo, keep asking questions. Privacy breaches due to personal data getting out. Okay [LAUGH] I guess this is data leaking over here and this is being hacked and causing your systems to fail potentially. Job losses and social dislocation due to increasing automation. They didn't seem to be very concerned about that, and what I think is going to happen is would be a series of waves of worker retraining across all those market segments. I don't think job losses is actually going to result. When we switched from an agrarian society to industrial society, people had to learn new skills and were able to adapt, and this has happened a few times. So I think I agree with this. And then system breakdowns due to complexity while human life is at stake. They didn't seem to care too much about that as a risk. So the key findings from the market market report. IoT is changing technology landscape across all the verticals. That means all those application segments that were mentioned earlier. And organizations are seeking ways to make improvements amidst this evolution. Market is expected to be driven by factors such as increasing Internet connectivity, increasing demand for smartphones and other connected devices, adoption of wireless sensors, and mainstreaming of cloud computing. Okay, we've seen that three times. Lack of common communication standard across platform, and low power efficiency of devices acts as a restraining factor. Significant government funding drive new growth opportunities for players in the market. And overcoming data security and privacy issues is important for growth of IoT.
