connectcompute

Internet of Things is now incredibly hot and most people would agree that it will impact states, industries and life of people around the globe. Governments are making big statements and big investments in IoT to put their country in good position. Analysts and other experts claim they have the answers to what will happen, when and how much. And operators, consultants and vendors are fighting for an important role in what to come.

If we read the books of recent history we will find that the Internet started off as a research project but entrepreneurs made it what it is today. ISP:s connected people and businesses to the Internet, companies like US Robotics provided fast affordable modems and remote access solutions, Netscape and others created browsers and Alta Vista powerful search engines. Then thousands of web designers started to make good-looking web sites followed by CMS systems for more organized creation and maintenance of webs. While organizations started to benefit from the efficiency and improved service possibilities using the Internet, entrepreneurs exploited new innovative ways of doing things and completely new ideas. And ever since we have seen new innovative companies growing from nothing to big or huge: Amazon, Google, Twitter, SalesForce.com, LinkedIn, Spotify, Skype, Klarna, iZettle and TrueCaller just to mention a few – yes I am Swedish… Nobody figured out before hand how the Internet value chains would look like, which business models would be successful, the impact it would make or which companies would become the new giants.

Internet of Things is a misleading name. It’s the same Internet and we are just adding things to it. That’s why I prefer Internet of Everything. It is safe to argue that the development of Internet of Everything will follow a similar path as the Internet of People and Businesses. The main differences are that it will happen faster and ignorance will not be an acceptable excuse this time. It will be entrepreneurs once again who form the future and there are many of them around already! I have 28 of them in my Swedish M2M Service Enabler alliance alone but there are thousands of them around the world. And they are fighting hard every day to prove to customers, partners and investors that their idea, solution or approach will be a great success.

I would welcome more appreciation and support for the entrepreneurs! They don’t need a lot and it is paying customers who should fund most of their development. But a little help to go abroad to meet potential customers and partners and, most importantly, commercial pilot projects at home would be a very good start. There are initiatives already including startup and incubation programs, competitions like EIT ICT Labs Idea Challenge, Cisco’s IoT challenge and IPSO Alliance IoT Competition as well as investors looking into this field. But let’s give the entrepreneurs what they need to make this happen for us!