IoT Takes the Spotlight in ChannelCon Future Trends Sessions

ChannelCon 2018 Future Trends sessions offer unique insights on the latest technologies impacting the IT industry. On Wednesday, August 1, two sessions dove into the internet of things (IoT).

In the morning session, Emerging Tech Trends: Hype or Disruptive?, CompTIA Senior Director, Technology Analysis, Seth Robinson and Technology Futurist Ian Khan spoke to a full room about emerging technology, specifically focusing on what Khan considers to be the three core technologies:

• Blockchain
• IoT
• Artificial intelligence (AI)

“Everything falls within these three core technologies – the tech trifecta of the future that will redefine how we do things,” he said.

Implementation and Adoption of Emerging Tech

When it comes to emerging tech, Khan said that although it has been developed in the lab for decades, the challenge is implementing it in the real world. When we first started creating the technology, there was a missing component.

“Fifteen years ago, internet speeds were very slow, but now telecommunication has rapidly changed the game all together,” Khan said. “It has made it possible for all those technologies in the labs to come out and be adopted.”

He added that early adoption by consumers helps enterprises see the value in emerging tech, especially when it comes to IoT devices.

Enabling Smart Buildings

In the afternoon session Enabling Smart Buildings with the Internet of Things, BuildingDNA President Glenn Morris outlined several of the benefits of implementing IoT into buildings:

• Data rich
• Inexpensive
• Easy to install and understand

For example, he explained that installing a traditional thermostat in a commercial building can cost $2,500 between the installation and wiring. But with a smart thermostat, you simply hang it on the wall, turn it on and then configure it from an app.

Selling the Solution

When it comes to selling technology, whether you’re an IT pro communicating to the operations team or a service provider negotiating with clients, it’s important to focus on the solution, not the technology, Morris said.

“The starting point is gathering information to solve a problem, and everything is about solving a problem,” he said. “Most customers are not going to say, ‘I want my building to be smart.’ They’ll say, ‘If I knew how to better manage the AC in my building, I think I could save money on my energy bills.’”

And by simplifying things, you are more likely to get buy-in for your idea. Morris added that although building operations staff have technical competency – they use machines and tools everyday to fix things – they don’t necessarily have IT competency. Khan shared a similar sentiment earlier in the day.

“We make things more complex than they should be,” Khan said. “At the end of the day, what really matters is how a single technology solves a problem and how does it reduce risk.”

Interoperability: The Biggest Opportunity in the Marketplace

With so many companies making so many devices, it can be difficult getting the IoT devices to communicate with each other and to get the data in one place. Morris not only attended the morning session, but he asked a question about this and incorporated the response into his own presentation.

“It appears a lot of people are having problems with silos – they have solutions that don’t talk to each other,” Morris said. He asked how to integrate these siloed systems to consolidate the data.

“The first thing I think of is the standards, which are part of this IoT ecosystem,” Robinson said. “We don’t see agreed-upon standards, and that makes the integration challenge even bigger.”

Khan agreed that there’s an absence of standards, but it could take a lifetime to develop them. He then suggested what Morris later called “the biggest opportunity in the marketplace today.”

“I think one of the biggest opportunities is interoperability,” Khan said. “Think in a different shape or direction so interoperability is part of the process. How can you connect these systems that are separate? That’s the biggest business opportunity that you’ll come across as new technology emerges – connecting them and being a broker of connections to help this whole thing to flourish.”

Log on to ChannelCon online for more sessions on August 2 and earn continuing education units (CEUs) toward the renewal of your CompTIA certification.