When I think back on the year 2011, one word comes to mind: acceleration. After several years of hearing industry experts extoll the promises of M2M, to me 2011 feels like the year that the world finally woke up and took notice. It really hit home for me when, some months back while watching TV, an advertisement from a major insurance company came on and in the background, prominently displayed almost as much as the actors on the screen, was an M2M device manufactured by one of our best partners, just sitting there blinking away.
Mind you, this device had nothing to do with the product being sold in the ad, it was just there on the street, a piece of Americana, a connected device sitting on my network put together by a value chain of my trusted partners and is now a part of our everyday life.
That, my friends, is M2M going mainstream.
And so now, as I look back at this past year, I feel that it was marked by so many interesting developments in our exciting space:
- The keynote speakers at various industry events talking about the Internet of Things as transformative
- The major equipment vendors extolling a future of 50 Billion connected devices (could we raise the bar a little higher, please?)
- The Global MNOs announcing massive competency centres and new emerging markets groups, both vertical and horizontal
- The discussions around ETSI and GSMA and the multi IMSI SIM, and the impending new era of Subscriber Management
- The debate and confusion over 2g, 3g, HSPA Plus, LTE, 1xrtt, EVDO, Wimax, Satellite and now even White Space (and I’m sure I’m leaving something out) The comings and goings of a few companies, some promising, some smoke and mirrors, some big claims and empty promises, some real solutions
- The new buzzwords: SDP, SES, SDK, UICC, and so many more
- Lots of partnership announcements, some interesting deals being done and some not looking so good.
In the meantime, here’s what I know… First is that 2011 was a great year for us and so many of our partners. Existing projects are rolling down the road, even in these uncertain economic times, some faster than others, but all positive.
Second is that the new projects are indeed everywhere: If there’s a good reason to connect something to the network, chances are pretty good that somebody will try to do just that, even sometimes beyond comprehension.
Third is that I truly believe that most mobile operators and large enterprises alike are starting to understand that it takes good partners to deliver a total solution, and that M2M isn’t as easy as popping a SIM in a device and turning it on.
And last is that although new project failure rates will remain high, and many other projects will continue to be sluggish, new and disruptive technology will continue to enter the market and become transformative, some invisibly so, and some right there on the TV screen in the mainstream.
Think of that connected security system, that connected parking meter, that connected car, that credit card machine in the back of a taxi, and the average person will not think M2M, they will think, well, life.
If it all fits in effortlessly, we won’t even notice it, will we? But to those of us that had something to do with the project, we will look at the TV screen and say, “I helped do that.” It might not have been easy for us, but if the end result is seamless to the consumer, or the enterprise, then we succeeded no matter how much pain it took to get there, and we staked our claim in a new slice of everyday life.
So a successful 2011 it was indeed. We can all thank the ecosystem of the entire M2M industry for making it so, partners and competitors alike. And thanks to all of us, the New Year looks brighter than ever, maybe not 500 Billion devices bright, but a few hundred million would be a nice consolation prize.
Here’s to a prosperous and connected 2012 to you all.
Dan McDuffie
CEO Wyless
