M2M Evolution Conference: Platform Battles and Optimistic Use Cases

Kathryn Weldon

Summary Bullets:

• M2M Evolution (in Las Vegas from August 27th to 29th) featured a ‘Battle of the Platforms,’ with the following winners: Etherios (winning for two categories – best horizontal and vertical platform), Amdocs (best provisioning platform), ThingWorx (best application development platform) and Xively (best non-platform implementation).
• The ‘battle’ seemed to favor small companies that offer cloud-enabled development platforms to simplify M2M application development and management in a fragmented delivery ecosystem.  The implication is that this need for simplicity is being met with innovative solutions that empower businesses to bring together the pieces they need to create M2M solutions across device types, networks and disparate vertical industries.

The M2M Evolution Conference had an overarching message relating to the evolution of the industry; we are apparently evolving from a customized, expensive and difficult-to-implement one-off application environment to a simpler, gentler ecosystem where cloud-based platforms provide connectivity to and from any device; configure, manage, upgrade and troubleshoot devices even in very large deployments; and enlighten businesses through data visualization.  The winners of the ‘Battle of the Platforms’ have many of these themes in common when they describe their products.