Is IT Ready for the IoT at Your Enterprise?

[MichaelDortch]

"IT," of course, is "information technology." And "IoT" is the "Internet of Things." But what doe the IoT mean to or imply for IT?

The good folks at Progress Software recently published the "State of IoT 2015 Global Developer Study" (free; registration required), based on a survey of 675 developers of IoT applications conducted by Harbor Research. Here are a few findings you might find interesting.

• Nearly half of the developers surveyed (48 percent) don't even use the term "Internet of things." More than one-third (35 percent) of those who said that they do not use the term said the term "doesn't mean anything" to them. Some 27 percent of those respondents said that the term is "confusing and can mean different things."
• More than three-quarters of the respondents are "excited" about the IoT's potential. Some 45 percent of them are already developing IoT apps, and most expect adoption to grow during the next five years. However, only half believe that they have the skills, resources, and tools they need to realize IoT's promise. A majority also wonders whether (or when) challenges such as integration, interoperability, privacy, and security will be addressed effectively.
• "For 2/3 of developers, less than 25 [percent] of IoT apps in production are currently generating revenue." However, "Developers expect to see more of these apps bringing in revenue over the next 10 years," the study says. Meanwhile, more than a third of the respondents (36 percent) reported that the percentage of their production apps that are generating revenues today ranges between one and 25 percent. And 28 percent of respondents are still waiting to see their efforts generate any revenues at all.

Why does any of this matter to your IT team? Because the IoT is coming to your enterprise in some way, shape or form, likely sooner rather than later. Earlier this year, the Silicon Valley venture firm Andreessen Horowitz published a list of "16 things" it expects to transform enterprise computing. Among the things that made the list? "Sensorification of the enterprise"—and the IoT.

Here's what the firm's Scott Weiss had to say about why sensorification is coming to the enterprise. "The form and sophisticated functionality of smartphones has led to businesses we couldn't ever have imagined (ridesharing, to name just one example). This was made possible partly because of the 'sensorification' of the landscape, coupled with mobile and a friendly UI.

"That same sensorification needs to move into the enterprise.

"Enterprise UI is woefully behind. All those well-understood motions that have taken hold from our everyday smartphone behaviors—pinch, zoom, swipe, tap, speak, even just moving stuff around with our fingers—have yet to take hold in the enterprise. The user interface has always been an afterthought, the last thing one did after building a database.

"That is changing now.

"For [the] enterprise, the value of the sensors is in being a shortcut for the user interface, potentially even replacing typing so we can concentrate on the easy, fun, creative things."

What happens when your service management tools can "talk" to devices ranging from modern light bulbs to smart watches? What about when you can consolidate and integrate management of physical and electronic security services, so you not only know what system the hackers used, but when and where they entered and left the building? And how will you manage analysis of all of the data generated by all of those new sensors, and the effects on your enterprise's IT infrastructure and critical services?

Is IT ready for the IoT at your enterprise? Probably not—but there's no time like the present to start getting ready.