My take on the state of IoT based on the Eclipse IoT report:
0. IoT has matured and is ready for significant adoption. 1. The importance of Edge Computing is evident to stakeholders. 2. Organizations are ready for larger-scale IoT deployments (>10k assets). 3. Open-source mitigates the vendor-locking risk and provides great flexibility. 4. Connectivity + Security = form the strong foundations for IoT, but… 5. Data Management is more complicated than it seems!
Good news: C-level executives are in charge of IoT engagements. That results in two significant outcomes:
1. CxO are business-oriented stakeholders => IoT initiatives will focus on providing business value instead of technology experiments => more IoT projects will succeed => a broader group of C-level executives will take ownership. 2. CxO dispose of bigger budgets => IoT will move from PoC/MVP to production scale deployments.
The above points create perfect conditions for IoT to thrive. Enterprises are ready to invest in IoT solutions and leverage them as a competitive advantage.
Final thoughts: Keep calm and integrate the Internet of Things technology with your production environment. IoT projects are rarely disconnected from the existing IT/OT infrastructure - in real life, we typically work with Brownfield deployments. IoT is “just” an enabler that does not provide business outcomes on its own.