In a series of new reports released this week, the industry analyst group IDC stated the worldwide market for IoT spending will grow from $655.8 billion in 2014 to $1.7 trillion in 2020. That spending includes devices, connectivity, sensors, platforms, and software. What’s interesting to me about this number is that the majority of the spending will come from the enterprise and not from the general consumer which tells me that the enterprise has made the decision that IoT is here to stay.
Which leads me to think about the notion of a common tech stack for IoT applications. The IoT vision is vast, but there’s little consensus around best practices and those all-important common tech stacks. Most of today’s IoT projects are highly custom and project teams are forced to choose between proprietary platforms or re-invent the wheel each time. And while that is not optimum, that is where we are in the development world.
There are those out there that want to create, or even force a common tech stack for IoT technology. I understand the desire but frankly I question the viability, especially at these early stages. We are at the point now where software development cycles have moved from six-nine months to three-four months and sometimes even quicker than that. The new demands of our "always on" society is insisting on new and better ways to deliver software and all of the benefits behind it so the argument could be made that a common stack would lead to even quicker development timelines.
I’m just not so sure about this. The bottom line for me is that we are truly at the early stages of this. IoT conferences and hackathons are popping up like so many new websites did back in the mid-90s. And this is great. Developers get to participate with industry experts to begin to define what the standard may look like in addition to all of the interoperability requirements that will help to drive IoT forward and continue to make it viable.
For those of us that have been around a few “development generations”, this is yet just another juicy problem to be solved. As developers, we love taking seemingly complex and impossible tasks and turning them into viable solutions. Candidly, these complex problems are what we are solving for the business anyway… without the Internet of Things.
So what does all of this mean for the average business – or for that matter – the development community? First off, don’t panic and don’t believe as though you can’t do anything right now. You can still develop IoT applications and technology. Second, contribute. The only way we as developers and thought leaders will solve these challenges is if we all work together; talk to your fellow developers and the business. Find out what’s needed and what problems they are trying to solve. And last, but certainly not least; don’t let any of this stop you. We all have a passion for problem solving and we will all fall many times before we walk and then run.
We can do this
Which leads me to think about the notion of a common tech stack for IoT applications. The IoT vision is vast, but there’s little consensus around best practices and those all-important common tech stacks. Most of today’s IoT projects are highly custom and project teams are forced to choose between proprietary platforms or re-invent the wheel each time. And while that is not optimum, that is where we are in the development world.
There are those out there that want to create, or even force a common tech stack for IoT technology. I understand the desire but frankly I question the viability, especially at these early stages. We are at the point now where software development cycles have moved from six-nine months to three-four months and sometimes even quicker than that. The new demands of our "always on" society is insisting on new and better ways to deliver software and all of the benefits behind it so the argument could be made that a common stack would lead to even quicker development timelines.
I’m just not so sure about this. The bottom line for me is that we are truly at the early stages of this. IoT conferences and hackathons are popping up like so many new websites did back in the mid-90s. And this is great. Developers get to participate with industry experts to begin to define what the standard may look like in addition to all of the interoperability requirements that will help to drive IoT forward and continue to make it viable.
For those of us that have been around a few “development generations”, this is yet just another juicy problem to be solved. As developers, we love taking seemingly complex and impossible tasks and turning them into viable solutions. Candidly, these complex problems are what we are solving for the business anyway… without the Internet of Things.
So what does all of this mean for the average business – or for that matter – the development community? First off, don’t panic and don’t believe as though you can’t do anything right now. You can still develop IoT applications and technology. Second, contribute. The only way we as developers and thought leaders will solve these challenges is if we all work together; talk to your fellow developers and the business. Find out what’s needed and what problems they are trying to solve. And last, but certainly not least; don’t let any of this stop you. We all have a passion for problem solving and we will all fall many times before we walk and then run.
We can do this
RSS Feed
