HRI ThingWorx Paper 24 Jan 2012
Transcript of HRI ThingWorx Paper 24 Jan 2012
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HarborResearch
Harbor Research was recently given the opportunity to examine a new application
development platorm that takes a rereshingly new approach to integrating smart
devices, people, systems and the physical world. ThingWorx leaprogs the current
machine-to-machine (M2M) markets noise and clutter about device connectivity
by viewing core application development, device management and collabora-
tion or smart connected systems as a uniied challenge that can be addressed by
a single, scaleable solution. In so doing, ThingWorx is re-deining the concept oconnected platorms and creating a new market meta-category.
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Technologically, the 21st Century began with a very big
bang; two major technology developments have evolvedthat are now on a path o convergenceThe Internet o
Things and The Internet o People. The collaboration
technologies collectively driving social networking and
Enterprise 2.0 and beyond are spreading throughout the Internet
driving an unprecedented wave o growth. Meanwhile, intelligent
device networking - The Internet o Things - is upon us. Billions o
devices, are currently being connected to the Internet. The types o
devices being connected today extend ar beyond the laptops and
cell phones we have become so accustomed to. Today, virtually
all products that use electricityrom toys and cofee makers to
cars and medical diagnostic machinespossess inherent data
processing capability. Any manuactured object has the potential
to be networked.
The Advent of Smart Connected Systems and Services
In its simplest form, Smart Systems is a concept in which inputfrom machines, people,sensors, video streams, maps, newsfeeds and moreis digitized and placed onto net-
works. These inputs are integrated into systems that connect people, things, processes,
and knowledge to enable collective awareness, creativity and better decision making.
We prefer Smart Connected Systems over other terms in common usenotably
M2M, which usually stands for machine-to-machinebecause it captures the pro-
found enormity of the phenomenon - something much greater in scope than just machine
connectivity.
These phenomena are not just about people communicating with people or machines
communicating with machines; it also includes people communicating with machines,
and machines communicating with people. Smart connected devices are a global andeconomic phenomenon of unprecedented scale - potentially billions if not trillions of
nodes. Soon, any device that is not networked will rapidly decrease in value, creating
even greater pressure to be online. Consider the following:
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Today the number of connected devices on the planet is surpassing the number of
people-7+billion-dependingonyourdenitionofasensor,therearealreadymany
more sensors on earth than people;
A single large chemical plant produces more data in a day than the New York StockExchange and AMEX combined;
Estimates of data produced by the so-called Smart Grid could reach between 35 and
1000 petabytes per year.
Whatever we chose to call it -- Smart Systems or Pervasive
Computing or The Internet of Things we are referring to
digital microprocessors and sensors embedded in everyday
objects. But even this makes too many assumptions about
what the smart systems phenomenon will be. Encoded infor-
mation in physical objects is also smarteven without intrin-
sic computing ability. Seen in this way, a printed bar code, a
house key, or even the pages of a technical manual can have the status of an information
device on a network. For that matter, all of these characterizations do not even begin to
address the human-machine dimension of collaboration.
But very few people are thinking about smart connected systems on that level. Current
IT and telecom technologists are operating with outdated models of data, networking
and information management that were conceived in the mainframe and client-server
eras and cannot serve the needs of a truly connected world. Smart Systems should
automatically be understood as real-time networked information and computation, but
it isnt. The Internets most profound potential lies in the integration of smart machines,
information systems and peopleits ability to connect billions upon billions of smart sen-sors, devices, and ordinary products into a digital nervous system that will smoothly
interact with individuals and systems. The nature and behavior of a truly distributed global
information system are concerns that have yet to really take center stagenot only in
business communities, but in most technology communities, too.
Enter ThingWorx
Thispaperisaboutanimportantnewconnectedplatformoeringfrompeoplewhoare
thinking about the scope and on the scale that Smart Systems deservesThingWorx.
InouryearsofworkontheInternetofThingsphenomenonanditsreal-worldeectson
business, we have not encountered very many compelling visions about the completeintegration of things, people, systems and the real-time world. The ThingWorx team of in-
novators understand that the tools we are working with today to make products smart
on networks were not designed to handle the scope of new capabilities and interactions.
By 2020 there will bemore than 50 billionsmart devices onnetworks
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ThingWorx connected application platform is not a simple incremental improvement,
patch,Band-Aid,ornewavorofwhatwealreadydo.Theirdevelopmentrepresentsa
true shift in thinking about how devices, people and physical systems will be integrated
and how they will interact. The ThingWorx approach is not about leveraging aging IT
technologyintoanewapplicationcontext;itsaboutlookingforwardtoasingle,uniedplatform for interactions to which any PERSON or any THING can contribute, and which
liberates information interactions by abandoning traditional relational databasing and the
client-server computing model.
At the same time, taking this initiative seriously does not mean junking all current IT prac-
tice in one fell swoop. The pillars of present-day information technology will not crumble
overnight, nor has the great existing investment in them suddenly lost all value. There
arereasonable,scallysanepathsformigratingtothefuture.Butmigratewemust.The
assumptions and practices of the mainframe and PC eras are now decades old and not
suitable for the smart systems era.
Figure 1: Connected Platforms Drive Collaboration Between People, Devices & Systems
3D Collaboration
Devices
People
Systems
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M2M and Classical IT Technology Only Tells Part of the Story
Before delving into the new thinking that makes this story possible, lets talk about why
its necessary at all. The IT and telecom sectors have failed to re-evaluate their relation-
ship to advancing technology and to their constituents. The business and technology
paradigms to which these industries cling today are far too limiting, too cumbersome andtoo expensive to foster and sustain new growth.
From a Telco perspective, todays discussions of M2M systems focus almost exclusively
on communications -- the pipe -- and very little on the information value. In other words,
on things that look good to the carriers. There are many pop-
ular visions about wireless monitoring and wireless control.
Such as it is, wireless is a fantastic new advance -- no ques-
tion. But, focusing on the communication element alone as
rst-orderbusinessvalueamountstograbbingthewrong
end of the technology stick. Wireless communications alone
steals the limelight and potentially eclipses the real revolution-- utilizing new networking technologies and processes to
liberate information from sensors and intelligent devices to
leverage collective awareness and intelligence.
From an IT perspective, todays corporate IT function is a direct descendent of the com-
pany mainframe, and works on the same batched computing modelan archival mod-
el, yielding a historians perspective. Information about events is collected, stored, que-
ried, analyzed, and reported upon. But all after the fact.
Thatsaverydierentthingfromfeedingthereal-timeinputsofbillionsoftinystatema-
chines into systems that continually compare machine-state to sets of rules and then do
something on that basis. In short, for connected devices to mean anything in business,the prevailing corporate IT model has to change.
The next cycle of technology and systems development in the smart connected systems
arena is supposed to be setting the stage for a multi-year wave of growth based on the
convergence of innovations in software architectures; back-room data center operations;
wireless and broadband communications; and smaller, more powerful client devices
connected to personal, local and wide-area networks. But is it?
Whats Required....
When it comes to preparing for the global information economy of the 21st century, most
people assume that the IT and telco technologists are taking care of it. They take iton faith that the best possible designs for the future of connected things, people, sys-
tems and information will emerge from large corporations and centralized authorities. But
those are big, unfounded assumptions. In fact, most of todays entrenched players are
showing little appetite for radical departures from current practice. Yet current practice
will not serve the needs of a genuinely connected world.
The tools we are using to
make products smart on
networks today were not
designed to handle the
complexity they are beingrequired to support
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What are the major obstacles that need to be overcome?
Leveraging collective intelligence: For all its sophistication, many of todays M2M
systems are a direct descendent of the traditional cellular telephony model where
each device acts in a hub and spoke mode. The inability of todays popularenterprise systems to interoperate and perform well with distributed heterogeneous
deviceenvironmentsisasignicantobstacle.The many nodes of a network may
not be very smart in themselves, but if they are networked in a way that allows them
to connect eortlessly and interoperate
seamlessly, they begin to give rise to
complex, system-wide behavior. This
allows an entirely new order of intelligence
to emerge from the system as a whole
an intelligence that could not have been
predicted by looking at any of the nodes
individually. Whats required is to shift thefocus from simple device monitoring to a
model where device data is aggregated
into new applications to achieve true
systems intelligence.
Automated development: When
telephonesrst came into existence,all
calls were routed through switchboards
and had to be connected by a live
operator. It was long ago forecast that if
telephonetraccontinuedtogrowinthisway, soon everybody in the world would
have to be a switchboard operator. Of
course that has not happened, because
automation was built into the systems to
handle common tasks like connecting
calls. We are quickly approaching analogous circumstances with the proliferation
of smart connected devices. Each new device requires too much customization
and maintenance just to perform the same basic tasks. We must develop software
and methods to automate development and facilitate re-use, or risk constraining the
growth of this market.
Optimizing all assets - tangible and intangible: New software technologies and
applications need to help organizations address the key challenge of optimizing the
valueoftheirbalancesheets,allowingthemtomovebeyondjustnancialassetsand
liabilities to their physical assets and liabilities (like electric grids or hospitals) and then
to their intangible assets and liabilities (like a skilled workforce). The task of optimizing
Its The Application Dummy......
Given the immature state o Smart Systems, most people have
trouble understanding the important role applications will play.
Today, applications are cumbersome and complex to develop.
Whether the application is developed by the company deploying
it or a third party, they are oten custom developed which entailsa very high level o engineering complexity due to disparate data
ormats, diverse networks, dierent operating systems, and so on.
Applications are whats really required to drive growth and inorm
smart connected systems value.
It is easy to think o the ThingWorx platorm as being yet another
connectivity platorm. But its really an application development
platorm - not just unctionality or provisioning and managing de-
vice communications. As hard as it may seem to imagine, there
really are no existing application development platorms available
today specifcally designed or connected systems.
A careul examination o marketplace oerings clearly demon-strates that todays M2M sotware platorms have not kept pace
with evolving technologies, particularly application development
tools or connecting devices, people, systems and businesses.
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thevalueofnancialassets,physicalassetsandpeopleassetsrequiresnewtech-
nologies that will integrate diverse asset information in unprecedented ways to solve
more complex business problems.
Flexible, scaleable systems: IT professionals rarely talk these days about the needfor ever-evolving information services that can be made available anywhere, anytime,
for any kind of information. Instead, they talk about web services, enterprise apps and
now cloud computing. The Web stores information in one of two basic ways: utterly
unstructured, or far too rigidly structured. The unstructured way gives us typical
static Web pages, blog postings, etc., in which the basic unit of information is large,
free-form, and lacking any fundamental identity. The overly structured way involves
the use of relational database tables that impose rigid, pre-
ordained schemas on stored information. These schemas,
designed by database administrators in advance, are not at
all agile or easily extensible. Making even trivial changes to
these schemas is a cumbersome, expensive process thataects all the data inside them. Just as importantly, they
makedeep, inexible assumptionsaboutthemeaningand
context of the data they store. Both of these approaches to
data-structure enforce severe limitations on the functions
you want most in a global, pervasive-era information system:
scalability, interoperability and seamless integration of real-
time or event-driven data. The client-server model underlying
the Web greatly compounds the problem.
Some things that look easy turn out to be hard. Thats part of the strange saga of the
InternetofThingsanditsperpetualattemptstogetitselfotheground.Butsomethingsthat should be kept simple are allowed to get unnecessarily complex, and thats the
other part of the story. The drive to develop technology can inspire grandiose visions
that make simple thinking seem somehow embarrassing or not worthwhile. Thats not a
goodthingwhendeninganddeployingreal-worldtechnologytodeliverinnovation.This
is where the new values of ThingWorx platform really come into focus.
Model-Based Development Reduces Complexity and Time
The fact that a rapidly expanding range of devices have the capability to automatically
transmit information about status, performance and usage and can interact with people
and other devices anywhere in real time points to the increasing complexity of applica-
tions. This only compounds when we consider the billions or more of networked devices
that many observers are forecasting will be deployed. Some basic design principles
must be put in place to guide the development of smart connected applications.
We are reaching a
critical juncture on
the path to smartersystems where
organizations will
be crying out for
a completely new
approach
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The tools we are working with today to make products smart on networks were not
designed to handle the scope of new capabilities, the diversity of devices and the mas-
sive volume of data-points generated from device interactions.
These challenges are dilutingtheabilityoforganizationstoecientlyandeectively
managedevelopment.Therigidandfragmentednatureofsoftwareoeringsavailable
todaymakeitextremelydicult,ifnotimpossible,toleveragedesignanddevelopment
worksproutingupacrossdierentdevicedomainsandapplications.Infact,the rate
ofoperationalchangetodaysignicantlyexceedsthedesign-develop-deploycycleof
existing tools and is expected to increase 5x in 10 years. This makes increasing the pace
at which applications can be developed and deployed a critical requirement.
What is needed is a common means of connected application development that can
leverage tools across families of interrelated devices and diverse domains. What would
this entail:
Software and development tools to address a broad range of application
requirements - increasingly, customers will need a single unified framework to
design and build solutions that can interoperate across diverse data environments
and under widely differing usage scenarios;
Software and tools that allow users to quickly build their own functions, capabilities
and applications making people, devices and systems accessible as well as easily
integrated with business and operations applications. Users need to be able to
quickly integrate smart devices with new applications for analytics, usage and
on-line collaboration that are reliable, secure and scalable.
Software and tools that leverage re-use - given the scale of the Internet of Things it
will simply not be humanly possible to write all the code required without large scale
re-use and collaborative self-service participation.
We are reaching a critical juncture in market development where organizations will soon
be crying out for a completely new approach - one where the effort invested to develop
new applications can be quickly and easily utilized again and again across an ever
broader spectrum of devices, integration and interaction schemes.
Customers expect evolving software tools to be functional, ubiquitous, and easy-to-
use.Withinthisconstruct,however,thersttwoexpectationsruncountertothethird.In order to achieve all three, a new approach is required -- but what kind of approach?
The bit, the byte, and later the packet made possible the entire enterprise of digital
computing and global networking. Until the world agreed upon these basic concepts, it
wasnotpossibletomoveforward.ThenextgreatstepinITcompletelyuidinforma-
tion and fully interoperating devices, people and systemsrequires an equally simple,
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exible,anduniversalabstractionthatwillmakeinformationitselftrulyportableinboth
physical and information space, and among any conceivable information devices.
ThingWorx unique model-driven and iterative development environment allows users
to create data representations - Things - of a physical device, person or system. Theessence of an Thing is completely abstracted from its real-world embodiment and is
mutually interchangeable. Examples of things includes:
Properties: static and dynamic state data/information that are a Things real-time
projection to the world;
Services: Things can implement and invoke services;
Events: Things can generate and subscribe to events;
Streams: Things can store simple or complex activity streams;
Contained Things: Things can contain other Things; and,
Mashups: Things can have mashups bound to them.
This model-driven development approach dramatically reduces solution development
time, increases quality and fosters reusability. This model-based approach when com-
Figure 2: Connected Platform Drives New User and Customer Values
Open Interoperable Data In Multiple Parallel Formats
(Structured, Unstructured, Time-based)
Collects, Tags, And Relates Different Data TypesCreating An Operational Data Store That Becomes MoreValuable As The Quantity Of Data And The Density Of
Relationships Grows
Operates With Search-Based Information Discovery -Users Can Find Information And Discover PatternsWithout IT Specialists or Complex Data Normalization
Mashups Enables Business Users To Quickly AssembleNew Ad Hoc Application Solutions
Functionality For Collaborative User Participation For
Sharing Data and Building Applications
Instant Messaging-based Connectivity Enables Real-timeInteraction Between Devices, People, And Systems
Existing Systems(M2M & Similar)
Existing Systems Are Organized In Hub &
Spoke Manner Which Create Data Silos andPrevents Systems From Acting In An
Interoperable Manner
Application Development Is Custom and VeryComplex - Few If Any Tools For Users ToQuickly Develop Applications
Software Platforms Typically Focus On Single
Data Types Limiting Range of ExecutionProcesses
Intelligence Tools Work Off Of "Curated" DataSets Limiting The Questions That Can Be
Answered To Those Known In Advance
Scalability Limited Lack of Peer-To-PeerSchema For Data Relationships and Data Fusion
Connected CollaborativePlatforms
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bined with self-service tools that allow users to search for information and mashup simple
workspaces results in a 5X increase in solution development velocity.
Data Equality Drives User Innovation and Collective Intelligence
In todays world, information is not free (and thats free as in freedom, not free as in
free of charge). In fact, thanks to present information architectures, its not free to easily
merge with other information and enable any kind of search-based intelligence.
What would truly liberated information be like? It might help to think of the atoms and
molecules of the physical world. They have distinct identities, of course, but they are also
capableofbondingwithotheratomsandmoleculestocreateentirelydierentkindsof
matter. Often this bonding requires special circumstances, such as extreme heat or pres-
sure, but not always.
In the world of information, such bonding is not all that easy. Todays software platformsfocus on execution processes that generate one of three types of data - unstructured,
transactionalortimeseries.Foreachofthesedatatypes,aspecicsetofintelligence
tools have evolved to provide insight but, in most cases, these tools limit the questions
that can be answered to those known in advance. So for a user attempting to do some-
thing as simple as asking a certain multi-dimensional question, creating new information
from multiple data types that is an easily perceivable, manipulable, or mappable model
oftheanswertothatquestionisasignicantchallenge.
The ThingWorx platform fundamentally changes this para-
digm, treating data from things, people, systems and the
physical world as augmented representations. In other
words, treating diverse data types equally. This enables
processes connecting diverse data in any combination to be
rapidly built and deployed.
The traditional approaches to data discovery and systems
intelligence have two failings: they cant provide a holistic
view of these diverse data types and, the types of intelli-
gence tools available to users are, at best, arcane and typi-
cally limited in use to specialists.
ThingWorx brings search-based intelligence to the world of connected things. Their
platform includes a tool called SQUEAL which is a search, query and analysis toolthat acts on unstructured, transactional and time-based data simultaneously. Users can
useSQUEALtondinformationanddiscoverpatternsontheirown,withoutrequiring
specialists or IT support. This allows users to determine where deeper analytics or the
creation of an ad hoc business process can add value.
Facilitating search-based
discovery, enabled bydata and information
accessibility and cumulative
systems intelligence, is a
fundamental requirement for
next generation platforms
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Given the immature state of todays real-world systems, most people have trouble grasp-
ing the power and importance these capabilities enable. The ability to detect patterns in
data is the holy grail of smart systems and The Internet of Things because it allows not
only patterns but a whole higher order of intelligence to emerge from large collections ofordinary data. The implications are obviously immense.
ThingWorxusesanentirelynewapproachthatavoidstheconnementsandlimitations
ofthetodaysdieringdatatypesandtools.Itallowsdatatomaintaintheirfundamental
identity while bonding freely with other data. Facilitating discovery, based on data and
information accessibility and cumulative systems intelligence, is one of the fundamental
purposes of ThingWorx platform. They are designing a system for a genuinely connected
worldinwhichtherearenoarticialbarriersbetweenpiecesofinformation.
Collaborative Futures
At the end of the day, the convergence of collaborative systems and machine to machinecommunications implies a total paradigm-shift in IT. The depth of this shift has begun to
suggest itself, but it is by no means accomplished. Its a shift from knowing what hap-
pened to knowing what is happeningall the timeand then automatically controlling
systems and assets with that knowledge.
For businesses to really succeed at community building, they will need to fully embrace
thereal-timebenetsofcollaborationtechnologies.Collaborationdemandsthatwede-
sign not only devices and networks but also information interactions in ways not ad-
dressed by classical enterprise applications and systems today. To address this chal-
lenge, ThingWorx includes integral collaboration elements, including discussion forums,
blogs and wikis, to capture and codify tribal knowledge.
The intersection of Enterprise 2.0 and the Internet of Things creates value at two disparate
ends of the business spectrum. The adoption of Web 2.0 social networking and collab-
orative software for businesses is creating new value for businesses, driven from social
collaboration between employees, partners, customers and suppliers. On the other end,
the rise of the Internet of Things has helped transform manufacturing companies into
value-added service companies. Manufacturers are learning that by putting products
on networks they are essentially placing themselves into continuous contact with their
customers, thereby enabling them to better understand their customers needs and act
appropriately. The intersection of these two emerging trends creates an opportunity for
business users/developers and OEMs to evolve their business model and drive com-
petitivedierentiationbycleverlycombiningthecollaborationtoolsandenvironmentofa
common enterprise social networking platform with the ability to support remote devices,
machines, and people as peer members of the community.
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The Internet and new collaboration technologies are allowing companies and their cus-
tomers to interact with unprecedented levels of richness. This collaboration can come
in many forms, from an end user and call center operator working together to solve a
problem with a piece of equipment, to a service engineer devising optimized methods
to streamline repetitive tasks, or a customer working with a service or product design
engineertodesignanewandimprovedpieceofequipment.Thesecollaborativeeorts
often lead to new innovative solutions that create long-term value for the OEM, the user
and all the value adders involved in its use. Relational capital, that which grows from cus-
tomerintimacyandcollaborationwilldenenewrulesofcompetition.
Examples of next generation interaction between intelligent devices and humans are
plentiful. But to fully understand the true power of collaborative technology in the context
of smart systems, applications must be realized on a large
scale. The next chapter of this story will require a sophisticat-
ed platform that allows edge devicesbe they business, or
consumer, human or machine, operated wirelessly or wired,host-based or cloud enabledto participate in coordinated
knowledge sharing, problem solving, and transactions that
span dynamically created communities.
This will take personalization to another level, turning things
into learning machines that can be trained to know a users
habits and behaviors. Based on a humans needs (e.g. a
user,xer,designer,etc.), intelligentdeviceswillbeableto
infer needs and deliver highly individualized content without
requiring a user to search, or in many cases to think about.
While these new tools are inherently disruptive and sometimes challenge an organization
and its culture, they are not technically complex to implement. Rather, they are a relatively
lightweight overlay to the existing infrastructure and do not necessarily require complex
technology integration. An example device integration package for such a community
includes the ability to chat with the device to request status and execute commands,
theabilitytoshareles,theabilityforthedevicetoblogtoitscommunityhomepageor
send updates to a feed, and the ability to establish a direct peer-to-peer (P2P) connection
to a device for remote desktop or more specialized diagnostics.
ThingWorx platform innovation recognizes that valuable data can be stored in many loca-
tionsinmanydierentformatsandthatakeyfunctionistheabilitytoaggregatediverse
data types from many sources as well as the ability to provide data feeds to other existingenterprise applications, knowledge bases, and customer portals.
Finally, one other very important aspect of collaborative systems are their openness,
which allows anyone to create applications that can be subscribed to and used by other
members of the community. These applications may be horizontally focused, such as a
predictivemaintenanceanalysispackage,orverticalapplicationsfocusedonspecic
The convergence of
device applications andcollaboration creates an
opportunity for users and
customers to interact
with unprecedented
levels of richness
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markets. The fact that these systems can be completely open provides third party In-
dependent Software Vendors (ISVs) with access to a customer base that they otherwise
may not have been able to viably approach and eliminates the burden on them having
to deal with gaining access to critical device information. Open platform-based develop-
ment has proven itself as powerful mode of innovation and development.
Getting There First.....But To Where
Though their business models are intermingling today, all of the major categories of sup-
pliers in the traditional so-called M2M software arena have historically operated within
well-established assumptions about product scope and business models. No one would
characterize the existing players of being technology or business model innovators or
disruptive in nature.
Radical new thinking about information technology must begin
at the most basic levels, with new conceptions about the interac-tions of information with people, systems and devices. ThingWorx
teamisfutureproongtheirinnovationsbymakingthefewestpos-
sible assumptions about the nature of networked objects and the
data they produce, carry or process - the company takes a much
broader, all-encompassing view of information. Ultimately, this
type of platform solution will alter traditional business models and
how new applications are realized.
Sinceallofthisthatwearedescribingisaradicaldeparturefromcurrentplatformoer-
ings and business practices, and is driven by a very unique set of needs, it stands to
reason that this type of solution does not fall within the narrow specialties of the existing
players. In fact, the platform being described is probably best viewed as an entirely new
market category. This is particularly true given the disjointed patchwork of device solu-
tions presently in place and the apparent lack of vision from existing players of whats
required in the future. The opportunity to lead in developing and shaping this market
lookswideopentoplayerslikeThingWorxbecausetheyhaveguredouthowtosolve
tomorrows challenges as well as todays.
No one would
characterize theexisting market players
as business model
innovators or disruptors
About Harbor Research
Founded in 1984, Harbor Research Inc. has more than twenty ve years of experience in providing strategic consulting
and research services that enable our clients to understand and capitalize on emergent and disruptive opportunities driven
by information and communications technology. The rm has established a unique competence in developing business
models and strategy for the convergence of pervasive computing, global networking and smart systems.
2012 Harbor Research, Inc. All rights reserved
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