How will we service The Internet Of Things?

There’s lots of hype about The internet of Things. What are these “things” that will each have an Internet address, be addressable by IP, and talk to each other in order to resolve problems, and make our lives better? And how will people manage, maintain and ultimately operate them to our advantage?

“Things” will be part of a process, doing useful work to the benefit of humans. In doing so, they are creating value, but Things wear out, become technically obsolete or may no longer meet the business needs of their owners. Things will be found in manufacturing plants, industrial facilities, commercial buildings, vehicles, mobile equipment, even in homes. Things may even become wearable personal productivity devices (although I don’t see the $ value of this).

Things may be able to tell you when they are failing, but managing that failure, deciding on a course of action, and ultimately repairing, replacing or retiring the Thing remains the realm of human hands.

While the IoT is generating excitement within manufacturers of “Things”, as they add “intelligence” to otherwise dumb machines, I believe that the true opportunity is in helping people manage those Things.

The Internet of Things will cross corporate boundaries, where sophisticated software distributed throughout the IOT, will require a new breed of collaborative management tools which help people locate, manage and maintain these Things.

Gartner expects platforms to evolve that will manage The Internet of Things. Managing Things in buildings is what BuiltSpace is all about.