The Week In Review: IoT

Finance
Ring, which sells Internet-connected doorbells, security cameras, and other products, received another $109 million in private funding, bringing its total funding to $209 million. DFJ Growth, Goldman Sachs Investment Partners, and Qualcomm Ventures led the Series D round, with participation by Richard Branson and other existing investors. Ring says its products are available in 100 countries and 15,000 retail locations.

Analysis
Did the Moche people of South America anticipate the Internet of Things? This essay looks at the artwork they left behind more than a millennium ago, where serving bowls grow legs and inanimate objects attack warriors. Will the IoT result in products that make war upon us and enslave humans? “Order gives way to chaos,” the authors write.

Security
FreeWave Technologies, a supplier of wireless networking products and services, has five predictions for the Industrial Internet of Things in 2017. They include: A public utility will be shut down; finding IoT talent will be hard; and the year will see the introduction of stronger security measures.

Market Research
ABI Research forecasts that IoT-connected devices will generate more than 2,000 exabytes (2 zettabytes) of data in 2021, a nearly six-fold increase over the next four years, as IoT analytics extend from the cloud to the network’s edge. Cisco Systems, Dell, Intel, Predixion Software, and PTC are currently deploying intelligence in IoT systems on three levels, according to ABI.

Juniper Research says the installed base of consumer IoT devices will hit more than 15 billion units by 2021, an increase of 120% from 2016. The market research firm warns that botnets threaten an “unmanageable cybersecurity risk” for IoT devices, as seen with the Dyn distributed denial-of-service attacks. Juniper has a new report here.

Deals
Silicon Laboratories has acquired Zentri, a provider of low-power, cloud-connected Wi-Fi technologies for the Internet of Things. Financial terms weren’t disclosed. Silicon Labs said Zentri allows IoT device makers to speed their time to market and to differentiate their products. Meanwhile, Silicon Labs reported in a regulatory filing that BlackRock has increased its equity stake in the company to 10.3%.

Great Bay Software has joined the Dell IoT Solutions Partner Program as an Associate Partner. Great Bay says it provides real-time visibility and control for more than 20 million connected devices.

Products
Cypress Semiconductor expanded its line of NOR flash memory devices for applications in automotive electronics, industrial equipment, and the Internet of Things. The new FL-L NOR flash memories feature quad serial peripheral interfaces and now come in 64-megabit and 128Mbit densities.

WSO2 of Mountain View, Calif., this week introduced its WSO2 IoT Server 3.0 software, which it says is “100% open source” and works with the company’s WSO2 Enterprise Mobility Manager 2.0 software. WSO2 IoT Server can be used for application management, device management, IoT and mobile communications, identity and access management, IoT analytics, and visualization of sensor readings, while also exposing devices as application programming interfaces for app development and integration.

Consortia
The Open Connectivity Foundation named a new executive director, Joonho Park of Samsung Electronics. He succeeds Mike Richmond, who retired.

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