M2M beyond the hype - Connect-World

The future of M2MPutting M2M in perspectiveby Jim Morrish, Director and co-founder, Machina ResearcMost device s used by businesses, industries and individuals are stand-alone mechanismsthat cannot be accessed over a network or the Internet. M2M promotes an environment wheredevices connected through the Internet can share virtually any type of information. This alsoprovides an incredible amount of information, Big Data, that if ‘mined’ or ‘harvested’ couldfundamentally change the way companies and individuals conduct business. M2M with nearfield communications can help get information to the right place at the right time.Jim Morrish is a Director and co-founder of Machina Research, a specialist telecoms research and consulting firm focusing principallyon the emerging opportunity associated with new forms of connected wireless devices. Mr Morrish has over 20 years experience ofstrategy consulting, operations management and telecoms research in more than 25 countries worldwide.Mr Morrish’s previous experience includes strategy consulting for Booz & Co, project management and board membership at Cable &Wireless, Head of Department at the BBC and also work as a freelance consultant.Jim Morrish holds an MA in mathematics from Oxford University.M2M is going to be hugeOver the coming decades, Machine-to-Machine connected devices are set to pervadeall aspects of our daily lives. Exactly howmany connections there will be and whenis the matter of some debate, but withoutexception all forecasts of M2M anticipateextremely rapid growth.A significant element of the variation inM2M market forecasts is due to the fact thatthere is no agreed definition for M2M. Themost useful technical definition of M2M is“Connections to remote sensing, monitoringand actuating devices, together withassociated aggregation devices”.Based on this definition, M2M connectionsworldwide will grow from 2.4 billion in 2012to 18 billion in 2022. In 2022, the IntelligentBuildings sector will represent 37 per centof connections, Consumer Electronics 32 percent, Utilities (particularly smart metering)ten per cent and Automotive eight per cent.Healthcare will represent a further five percent of connections, and Smart Cities andPublic Transport another four per cent. Inrevenue terms, M2M represents a US$1.25trillion opportunity in 2022, of which US$780billion relates to device sales, US$60 billionrelates to installation and US$400 billionrelates to services.Some M2M sectors are already mature,others will grow rapidly in the next fewyears and many are still in their infancy andwill not truly take off for decades. It is clearthat M2M connections will continue to growstrongly for many years.It is also worth noting that not all M2Mconnections are equal. It’s not just the numberof connections that will be increasing overtime, but the level of sophistication of thoseconnections. The most basic M2M connectionswill be device-centric and may only providebasic information on a reactive basis. It is onlythe most sophisticated and advanced M2Mconnections that really have the qualities thatare often associated with our ‘connected’ future.That ‘connected’ future is discussed in moredepth later in this article, but it may be useful tointroduce here our hierarchy of M2M .Stage Description Comments1 Reactive information • Devices can be polled for information, or provide information according to a set timetable2 Proactive information • Devices communicate information as necessary3 Remotely controllable • Devices can respond to instructions received from remote systems4 Remotely serviceable • Software upgrades and patches can be remotely applied5 Intelligent processes • Devices built into intelligent processes6 Optimised propositions • Use of information to design new products7 New business models • New revenue streams and changed concept of ‘ownership’8 The Internet of Things • Publishing information for third parties to incorporate in applications18 • Europe II 2013