Some of you may be familiar with the famous Goya painting, ‘Saturn Devouring His Son ‘, which belongs to his series of ‘Black Paintings’. It is the best comparison I can make after returning from the TechXLR8, IoT World Europe Summit in London.
In the painting we see the god Cronos/Saturn, who immutably governs the course of time, devouring one of his sons. I see Cronos as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and his son as the Internet of Things (IoT). The analogy can be carried further – there are other brothers waiting their turn to be devoured by this hungry father. Soon it will be Augmented Reality /Virtual Reality (AR/VR), Blockchain and Digital Twins.
If we look at the Ecosystm global IoT Study, we find that adopters of IoT are developing their capabilities in related technologies, with AI, Machine Learning and Predictive Analytics being the most significant. Very soon the IoT that is part of our lives will have AI embedded in them.
So, if you are still waiting for the IoT boom, this event is a confirmation that IoT is not throwing up many new things at least in Europe. The few IoT companies that exhibited their products and services at Excel London showed nothing that could overshadow the big winner, the ubiquitous father AI.
I have been finding it more difficult to justify coming to these IoT events. However, my role as a speaker and moderator allows me to maintain my influence and keep my followers on social networks, informed. The organisation this year has sought speakers that mix vendor presentations with success stories of clients. But this year neither of them was able to raise the tone of the event. The few large IT firms present such as Microsoft, SAP and Oracle are on the AI bandwagon and their demos on pure-play IoT are oft-repeated.
The larger systems integrators did not have adequate presence either. Many of them should have implemented IoT solutions for years but never really risked investing in IoT, and continue to focus on digitalisation projects, cloud migration projects, products updates and customised developments.
The discussions of the first years of the IoT boom revolved around connectivity, security, IoT platforms, and even business models. Now, nobody is interested in these matters anymore.
There was no significant IoT news during the event. Perhaps the most important announcement was made by Marc Overton who took advantage of his presentation to announce the recent collaboration agreement between Sierra Wireless and Microsoft to claim industry’s first full-stack IoT offerings.
As for my sessions, they mixed IoT and Blockchain, something that would have guaranteed success for attendees two years ago or even last year but that did not arouse great enthusiasm this year. It is evident that both technologies are becoming a commodity. Something that is not bad, since we would stop speculating about possible use cases and actually implement the technology in our lives and businesses.
Do not worry, the life of IoT events continues, and so this week there are three more just in Europe:
- Living bits and Things in Bled (Slovenia), during 17-18th June 2019
- IoT Tech Expo Europe in Amsterdam (Netherlands) during 19-20th June 2019
- IoT Week in Aarhus (Denmark) during 17-21st June 2019
Here is what I think event organisers and Tech vendors should keep in mind:
- Organisers need to find a way to facilitate meetings between vendors and attendants – and focus on how to create indirect lead generation opportunities. This would be mutually beneficial for all concerned.
- Organisers and exhibitors need to try to reinvent these IoT events where we see IoT present in every corner of the floor, in every stage, in every service (cafeteria, rest rooms, transportation….). We need to breath IoT every minute.
- IoT vendors need to demonstrate that they are working with partners and not present isolated use cases or demos. We need to see that “intelligent things” from different vendors in the exhibition area are interconnected.
Otherwise the IoT events will continue to drive away both visitors and exhibitors. What would you like to get out of future IoT events? Let me know.
