Smart cities all involve the application of technology to the city, typically by government

The author, Tom Rebbeck, leads Analysys Mason’s Enterprise and IoT research practice

Each smart city project will have different goals but all hope to use technology to improve the city, by increasing productivity, reducing pollution and enhancing life for citizens. Individual projects may vary depending on the city and the region, but they all include this basic idea of improving a city through the application of technology.

The central and multifaceted role of governments in smart city plans is also a common feature. Governments, whether local, regional or national, have a role to play in various aspects of smart city development.

Firstly, the government is a user – often the largest user – of smart city services. Secondly, the government is the main buyer of smart city services. Finally, it dictates the rules that cities must follow, from planning regulations to the licensing of taxi firms. In large part, the success of a smart city project will depend on how the government is able to manage these various, and sometimes conflicting, roles.

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In CEO guide to IoT World 2017 and IoT Evolution Expo 2017:

• INNOVATION NEWS: Research reveals augmented reality appetite in connected cars, virtual reality headsets start to gain traction.
• MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS AMERICAS SHOW PREVIEW: The world’s largest mobile event initiates its North American spin-off. IoT Now brings you a comprehensive preview.
• INTERVIEW:  Mike Campbell, the general manager of the ThingWorx business at PTC tells IoT Now how IoT platforms can expose the data needed to augment realities and generate value for industrial enterprises.

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Read the IDC report to learn about the main software monetization trends. See how this could impact your IoT business and to get guidance for next steps:

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The author is Rickard Andersson, a senior analyst at Berg Insight

According to Berg Insight’s research in the space, the fleet management market is in the coming years expected to continue along a consistent growth trajectory which has prevailed in the past decade, largely driven by international telematics giants offering increasingly sophisticated solutions to customers of all shapes and sizes. The market is at the same time gradually extending as new and improved functionality is implemented on a wide scale across an ever-increasing range of asset types.

Infrastructure and applications for fleet management solutions Fleet management is an ambiguous term used in reference to a wide range of solutions for different vehicle related applications. Berg Insight’s definition of a fleet management solution is a vehicle-based system that incorporates data logging, satellite positioning and data communications to a back office application. At a high level, the infrastructure for fleet management can be divided into four segments including the vehicle segment, GNSS segment, back office segment and network segment. On the application level, fleet management solutions include numerous feature sets for various types of commercial vehicles. Typical high-level categories include vehicle management, driver management, operations management and regulatory compliance and reporting. Each category includes different subsets of fleet management functionality, some of which are generally applicable for all types of fleet segments while others are specific for certain operations.

In practice, IoT platforms are therefore becoming more and more a combination of these dressed up in a wide range of business needs, some more urgent than others.

The author, Robin Duke-Woolley, is chief executive of Beecham Research

Decision making in respect of which IoT solutions and platforms to select gets more challenging when successful IoT engagement means processing large amounts of data in real-time to support current business operations. It can be more challenging still to integrate these new real-time data flows with traditional batch update data typical of IT systems already in use. Those challenges increase further when these data flows need to interoperate smoothly and securely across several different business operations, all in real-time.

To cater for these and other challenges and create an IoT solution that will stand the test of time, IoT platforms are increasingly being viewed as the starting point to build on. Put simply, the aim of an IoT platform is to reduce the time and cost of getting new IoT solutions built and implemented by using components already available and being used in other IoT solutions. An IoT platform takes advantage of the fact that the majority of what is needed for most IoT solutions is the same and does not need to be reinvented for every application: it can be predesigned and made available through a platform. The platform then also provides the means for implementing those elements that are specific to the particular application, as well as customising and configuring the solution for the specific need.

So how does a business user, also referred as an adopter, go about choosing the right IoT platform for them?

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Please note:IoT Now CEO guide to IoT World 2017 and IoT Evolution Expo 2017 can only be read by users who have logged in. Registration is free via the form on the rightbottom!

In CEO guide to Mobile World Congress 2017:

• INTERVIEW: Frank Ploumen, the chief technology officer for IoT platforms and applications at Nokia, tells George Malim that technology is no longer the greatest challenge facing the further development of IoT
https://networks.nokia.com/innovation/iot
• EVENT PREVIEW: IoT Now’s event preview, presenting the IoT-related highlights of this year’s Mobile World Congress
• INTERVIEW: Sukamal Banerjee says that organisations will unlock sustainable value from IoT if they maintain focus on business outcomes

The author is Emil Berthelsen, principal
analyst at Machina Research

Industrial IoT (IIoT) has accelerated the pace of innovation and manufacturers are pushed to explore and implement new technologies in IoT while maintaining existing systems and architectures, creating tensions between operational technologies, information technology and IoT implementations. Differences between regions and markets do exist, and globalisation has presented greater competition between markets than ever before. Common to all manufacturers are the continuous needs to reduce costs, improve performance and deliver quality to customers. Combined growth, innovation and competition have the manufacturing industry looking to industrial IoT as a way forward, and as shared in this report, exciting and innovative IoT solutions are reinventing manufacturing.

As the Internet of Things vision becomes the driving paradigm for changes in society and in economic activities, increasingly, the vulnerability present in that change requires attention. Facing that vulnerability through a strategic and multidisciplinary approach for IoT security is not an easy task for the community of cybersecurity experts, IoT experts and policy makers and ethicists.

Cybersecurity is an engineering and scientific area of great complexity, but, with an extraordinary impact on governments, consumers and businesses. Therefore, building a bridge between cybersecurity experts and organisations and individuals vulnerable to attacks is necessary. This Insight Report discusses IoT security in the smart home as a consumer IoT context, in the industrial internet as an intensive enterprise IoT context; and in the smart city as a government-led context.

The Insight is structured in five sections. The first section will introduce the main concepts and challenges in providing security for the IoT. The next four sections will discuss approaches to security in smart homes, industrial internet and smart cities. The last section will provide some concluding remarks.