Internet of Things (IoT)
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IoT opening new doors for chip makers
A short post today on a few interesting articles I came across on IoT chip businesses over the past few weeks. 1) IoT business small but growing fast and profitable This article talks about Intel's IoT group (used to be called the Intelligent Systems Group) and its profitability. The group's revenue grew from $1.6B in 2012 to $1.8B in 2013, and is expected to surpass $2B in 2014. While this is small compared with Intel's total revenue of $53B (2013), the group's operating income was a very impressive 31% (Intel's total operating income was 23% in the same year). The author says this high profitability is due to the company's ability to leverage existing technology and high margin on related software sales. 2) New chips that serve the needs of IoT Some IoT devices need to operate in a very different environment from PCs and smartphones. Many of them have limited access to power (ie. iBeacons) and some need to operate in harsh environments. Adesto Technologies announced a new memory chip called CBRAM that consumes 1/100 less energy and can withstand high levels of gamma rays and electron beam sterilization treatments, meaning "it can be used in a surgery room, even after sterilizing". A new line of sensors from Spansion can harvest its own energy from the sun, vibration, or heat. Company spokesman says that the chips could operate "for a decade to 30 years, perhaps even more". Chip makers have been eager to find future applications beyond PCs and smartphones to drive their next growth. Will IoT fill that role? The industry sure hopes so as we're seeing forecasts that say IoT will surpass PCs, smartphones, and tablets around 2020. Check out our full scan of IoT on the Venture Scanner website!
Read MoreThe explosion of IoT accelerators and incubators
Last week GE and Frost announced a joint effort to create an incubation program called Frost I3 incubator. It focuses on the industrial internet—solutions that utilize big data and sensors that drive efficiency and productivity. This past week Microsoft Ventures and American Family Insurance also announced the creation of an accelerator for the connected home.
What will Nest (or Google) do with DropCam?
The hot IoT news this weekend was Nest's acquisition of DropCam for $555M. Compared with the multi-billion dollar hardware deals this year so far, $555M seems small but in my mind incredibly large for a connected home market that's still far from reaching the mass market. Google surely is betting big in anticipation for future growth by shedding out $3.2B for Nest and DropCam.
Is the connected home finally here?
The term "connected home" or "smart home" has been around for decades. In the 90's and 00's, a lot of consumer electronics companies and component makers published drawings with home servers, gateways, and all types of home devices talking to each other and sharing files. I remember, in my past life, I used to draw similar things on powerpoint and announced a lot of partnerships and initiatives . However, none of those concepts became a mainstream hit.
Delivering hardware on time is really really hard
When I used to work at a consumer electronics company, delaying a product launch and missing the demand season--back to school and Christmas sales--was the worst nightmare come true.
How big will the IoT market become?
So macro things first--how big is the IoT market expected to become, at least in the eyes of the academia and industry? Here's a couple of figures I found from MIT Tech Review and Cisco's website.
Organizing the Internet of Things space
I'm currently following the Internet of Things (IoT) space and at the time of writing this post, have identified 391 companies in 10 categories that collectively raised $1.77 billion.
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