The Week In Review: IoT

Connectivity
M1 Limited of Singapore worked with Nokia to launch a nationwide narrowband Internet of Things network, targeting such applications as asset tracking, environmental monitoring, fleet management, and smart energy management for buildings. M1 hopes to boost the IoT ecosystem in Singapore with the new NB-IoT network.

M&A
DuPont has agreed to acquire Granular, a provider of digital agriculture technology, for a reported $300 million. The transaction is expected to close during the third quarter. Granular was founded in 2014 and offers its Farm Management Software. It also operates the AcreValue.com website for farmland real estate.

Finance
MagicCube of Santa Clara, Calif., raised $8.5 million in a Series A financing round led by Bold Capital Partners, bringing its total funding to $10.7 million. Epic Ventures and Social Starts also invested in the startup, which offers IoT applications in autonomous and connected vehicles, device identity and embedded secure credentials, medical devices, mobile point-of-sale systems, ticketing and transportation, and tokenization.

Switzerland-based ELSE has received $3 million in seed funding by Airbus Ventures and other investors to develop a satellite network to support IoT applications. The firm also has funding from the European Space Agency and the Swiss government. ELSE is working on two demonstration spacecraft for its proposed Astrocast system, with plans for a constellation of 64 satellites to be launched between 2019 and 2021.

Cybersecurity
The Synopsys State of Fuzzing 2017 report finds that IoT and industrial control systems software was the most vulnerable to exploits, as reported by Synopsys customers using the company’s Defensics Fuzz Testing offering.

Commentary
Regarding the planned introduction of the IoT Cybersecurity Improvement Act of 2017 in the U.S. Senate, Steve Brumer, a partner of 151 Advisors, had this to say about the legislation: “Regulation is often good for business because it will force government agencies to spend money (via IoT security companies in this case) and it propels the adoption for needed solutions with or without standards. Most companies and agencies do not want to allot a budget to security because security does not generate revenue. Spending on security is purely reactive. No one would have spent any budget on security without Target, Sony, and the many other security breaches. The largest threat to security are known security flaws since most hackers exploit security flaws that have been sent patches, but consumers and companies have not downloaded. It is a numbers game and WannaCry shows that there are a ton of devices that have not been updated with the necessary patches. Government funding will provide security companies with the revenue they need to expand and develop tools that will be less expensive for companies in the next couple years. But without addressing the need for worldwide standards in IoT, this will be a Band-Aid reactionary model.”

Ariel Rabkin of the American Enterprise Institute has his own take on the Senate bill. “Covering all Internet devices might be good policy, but it should not be done by accident or haphazardly,” he writes.

Strategy
Maciej Kranz, author of Building the Internet of Things and vice president of the Corporate Strategy and Innovation Group at Cisco Systems, writes in the Harvard Business Review about how seeking out industry partners can help companies achieve IoT success. “No single company, deploying only its own products or services, can capture IoT’s value by itself, and certainly not with the speed required in today’s digital market,” he writes.

Enterprises looking for success in IoT should follow these recommendations, Bob Violino writes. They are: Appoint an IoT leader; create a distinct IoT organization; clearly define IoT roles; build a culture of secure IoT; and leverage IoT expertise from the outside.

Conferences
Mobile World Congress Americas makes its debut next month, September 12-13-14 at San Francisco’s Moscone Center. It is being put on by the GSM Association and the CTIA. Some 1,000 exhibitors have signed up for this event’s premiere. Conference topics include 5G networks, artificial intelligence, autonomous cars and vehicles-as-a-service, cybersecurity, IoT platforms and services, retail, and smart cities.

Recognition
Zinnov Management Consulting identified Persistent Systems as a leader in IoT competency in its Zinnov Zones 2017 for IoT Technology Services report. Xoriant was recognized in the report as a leader in IoT system integration, as well as software platforms and applications. More information is available here.

Market Research
Transparency Market Research says the worldwide IoT device management will show a compound annual growth rate of 31.5% over the next eight years. Its new report looks at the role of data analytics in IoT device management. Leading players in IoT device management are ARM (which is rebranding itself as arm), Robert Bosch, Google, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Intel, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, and Smith Micro Software. A sample of the report is available here.

Persistence Market Research has issued the Internet of Things (IoT) Analytics Market: Global Industry Analysis 2012-2016 and Forecast 2017-2025 report. The study can be ordered from ReportBuyer.com.