IT companies need to shift toward IoT commercialization

LG CNS CEO Kim Dae-hoon speaks during the Entrue World 2015 technology conference at the COEX exhibition center in Samseong-dong, Seoul, Tuesday.
/ Courtesy of LG CNS

By Yoon Sung-won

Google should learn from Tesla how to run the Internet of Things (IoT) business, a leading IoT expert says.

Kevin Ashton, founder of the Auto-ID Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), said companies such as Google, Facebook and Apple, should move their focus from information technology (IT) to IoT to avoid business downturns that the likes of Sony and Blackberry have suffered.

"Sony's corporate value has plunged since the mid-2000s after new technologies such as smart mobile devices were released," Ashton said in his keynote speech at the LG CNS Entrue World 2015 in Seoul, Tuesday. "Companies like Dell, Blackberry, IBM and Microsoft also suffered from similar challenges.

"To develop the IoT business, companies like Google should care more about investing their capital resources not only in research but also in commercializing what they have developed as actual devices and services."

Ashton created the concept of IoT at the Auto-ID Center at MIT in 2009. He described it as a networked system that connects various devices equipped with sensors and radio frequency identification (RFID) tags.

Ashton identified Tesla as the world's most successful IoT business.

"Tesla's cars are noticeable in not just that they are electric vehicles but also that they operate based on software called autonomous navigation technology," he said.

"By 2020, this technology will be more common and you will be able to ride on a fully automatic driving machine. Unlike Google Glass, Tesla already has successfully commercialized products."

He also said Tesla CEO Elon Musk knew how to apply what he has learned from one business to another, citing the electronic rocket project by Musk's private space rocket company, SpaceX.

Ashton also said companies should not call a device "smart" just by putting a sensor chip in a random product.

"Some put chips in socks, toasters and refrigerators and called them ‘smart,'" he said. "But smart devices and the IoT are not about making sensors do what people can do with ease. The IoT is about empowering devices to sense happenings around us and help people make better decisions based on such information."

In his speech, LG CNS CEO Kim Dae-hoon said the IoT paradigm should be shifted from device-centered to service-oriented.

"In the rapidly expanding IoT market, the service sector is growing much faster than the device market," he said. "Optimal devices, networks that integrate diverse protocols, technology capabilities that can handle big data analysis and intelligent services and high reliability and security are essential to establish public service-centered IoT."

The CEO said LG CNS had pushed ahead with the IoT business in transportation, energy, healthcare, home appliances, manufacturing, retail, finance and shipping industries.

Entrue World started in 2001 and has been the nation's leading IT conference. During the past 15 years, Entrue World has introduced concepts such as e-commerce, real-time enterprise, advanced analytics and the IoT in Korea, LG CNS said.

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