The Week In Review: IoT

Analysis
Cisco Systems and General Electric will be the main contenders in the industrial Internet of Things market, this analysis contends. Meanwhile, The New York Times analyzes GE’s big bet on the IoT and related software development to stay ahead of competing technology giants.

Qualcomm holds the most Internet of Things patents, leading Intel, ZTE, Nokia, and LG Electronics, this analysis notes. As growth slows in smartphone sales, the chip design company is looking forward to the next great growth opportunity in IoT, the analysis concludes.

Market Research
Mobile Experts has a new report, IoT: The Big Picture 2016, which examines 36 Internet of Things technologies and 26 IoT applications. The report breaks down the market in seven key areas: battery life, cost, data rate, latency, mobility, range, and reliability. “Multiple IoT suppliers are counting on the same applications for success, and investing heavily without fully understanding the alternative technologies which address the same requirements. Not everybody can win this game,” Joe Madden, principal analyst at Mobile Experts, said in a statement. “Our unbiased analysis looks closely at the investment in each technology, to predict which companies can survive the war. This report can help each vendor avoid stepping on a tripwire.”

Research and Markets predicts the global Internet of Things energy market will have a compound annual growth rate of 24.61% from this year to 2022. It has a new report, Global Internet of Things (IOT) Market in Energy Insights, Opportunity, Analysis, Market Shares, and Forecast 2016-2022.

Zion Research estimates the worldwide IoT security market will increase from $55.6 million in 2014 to $464 million in 2020, posting a compound annual growth rate of 42.4%. The market research firm offers a sample of its report here.

Security
Level 3 Communications warns that various botnets are attacking devices and infecting them with malware. Most of those devices are Internet of Things devices, with 95% of such devices being cameras and digital video recorders, about 4% are home routers, and compromised Linux servers represent less than 1%, the company’s Level 3 Threat Research Labs says.

Products
NXP Semiconductors worked with Midea, a household appliance manufacturer, to design a smart kitchen appliance using NXP’s MHT1004N low-voltage solid-state cooking transistor. “The semiconductor cooking method also enables consistent results thereby enabling smart features for Internet-connected appliances,” the companies said in a statement. Separately, NXP reported that China’s Ministry of Commerce has approved the chipmaker’s plan to divest its Standard Products business, a transaction scheduled for completion in the first quarter of 2017.

Verdigris Technologies rolled out Einstein, an artificial intelligence-based IoT sensor and monitoring offering that serves as an energy management platform. It is meant to reduce energy consumption and costs in buildings. “Einstein makes it unbelievably easy to know what’s happening inside your building in real time, down to a single appliance,” Verdigris CEO Mark Chung said in a statement. The platform is being demonstrated at the Jabil Blue Sky Center in San Jose, Calif.; Jabil Circuit is a customer of Verdigris and an investor in the company.

Maxim Integrated Products introduced the MAXREFDES143# IoT embedded security reference design for industrial IoT applications. It protects against counterfeit sensor data from transducer to the cloud, the company said, and features the DS2465 co-processor, which supports Arduino and ARM mbed platforms. The reference design is available for $75 from the Maxim website and selected franchise distributors.

Deals
RetailNext has agreed to provide in-store analytics to Peach John, a Tokyo-based retailer of lingerie and women’s apparel with more than 30 stores in China, Hong Kong, and Japan. The RetailNext software-as-a-service platform will be deployed in multiple stores across Japan between now and early 2017. “RetailNext is honored to work with Peach John as it deploys IoT solutions to optimize its brick-and-mortar retail shopping experiences to best appeal to its devoted customers,” RetailNext CEO Alexei Agratchev said in a statement.