Is the Internet of Things Growing as Rapidly as We Hoped?

K. Weldon

Summary Bullets:

• Early forecasts for the IoT suggested that we would have 50 billion global devices connected by 2020, but in reality, we have only reached about 2 billion devices globally.
• What are the reasons to be optimistic about the next five years when it comes to the growth of the IoT? What are the reasons to be pessimistic?

In 2010, we started to see huge excitement about the IoT from a diverse ecosystem of suppliers, ranging from operators and MVNOs to infrastructure vendors, module manufacturers, integrators, and solution providers. Early forecasts from companies such as Cisco and Ericsson suggested that by 2020 we would see from 20-50 billion devices connected.

Huawei Connect 2019: When It Comes to Combating Global Politics, Huawei Is Taking the Long View with Its AI Portfolio

B. Shimmin

Summary Bullets:

• Though unacknowledged, Huawei responded to growing global criticisms at its annual Connect Conference in Shanghai by introducing several new products in support of its full-stack, all-scenario AI portfolio.
• With several new solutions spanning AI training and algorithm execution hardware, cloud services, open source projects, and ecosystem investments, Huawei intends to build a vibrant, sizable, and influential ecosystem of partners.

Huawei may be facing a global and escalating chorus of scrutiny, criticism, and outright censure right now over whether or not enterprise buyers should trust the Chinese technology giant. But, here in Shanghai, China at Huawei’s Connect 2019 conference, the skies are blue, the temperature is temperate, and the trees appear ready to don their glorious autumnal colors at any moment. This was the sentiment – only slightly paraphrased – delivered as a response to these challenges by Huawei’s Deputy Chairman and Rotating CEO, Ken Hu, during the opening keynote on Wednesday.

HPE in Industrial IoT – Moving Away from a Catch-All Platform to Collaborative Solutions

J. Marcus

Summary Bullets:

• HPE has discontinued marketing and development of its IoT platform.

• HPE is instead moving forward in supporting IoT deployments with infrastructure and consulting, working directly with customers as well as third-party SIs and platform providers.

HPE was in Berlin this week as a primary sponsor at Industry of Things World 2019, a hands-on conference focused on industrial IoT and digital transformation for enterprises.

Despite the clear importance of IoT to HPE’s strategy, HPE Universal IoT Platform, which the company had been promoting aggressively for a few years since its launch in 2016, has been discontinued (although it is maintained in a few deployments where it is still being used). HPE found market requirements to be so diverse that attempting to provide a horizontal solution across all sectors and use cases won’t resonate with enough customers to make it worth it. Key industrial verticals – for example automotive manufacturing, which represents a large market opportunity for IIoT – expect a vertical template, and HPE never had much traction with its platform in manufacturing. With its origins in telco OSS/BSS systems, HPE’s solutions have worked well with large scale smart city deployments, although it found adding connectivity to devices challenging.