Toward Internet of Things Application Markets

Dejan MUNJINInstitute of Services Science

University of GenevaDejan.Munjin@unige.ch

Jean-Henry MORINInstitute of Services Science

University of GenevaJean-Henry.Morin@unige.ch

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Outline

• Motivation and Problem Statement • Related Work• Review of Software Application Platforms• Proposition – Toward IoT Application Market• Ongoing and Future Work

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Application Markets – Smart Phone

• Cloud based service• Hardware - dependent applications• Large number of users and

Hardware performances

• Metrics on 14/11/2012:Apple AppStore 727,938Google PlayStore 558,065

• Plethora of applications and services

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Application Markets - IoT

• IoT is following 1 sensor 1 application model

• Goal : Marketplace – many things – many apps

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Problem Statement

Problem Internet of Things has a limited number of application marketplaces and

therefore low number of applications/services

• Study: IoT objects -> Data -> Application marketplace

• Aim: Empower developers, third party firms, and users to distribute the software applications for IoT

• Contribution: Identified challenges and proposed design elements for realizing the IoT application marketplaces

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Motivation for Application Market

• Application market: empowers participants in the ecosystem

• “When successful, these platforms catalyze a virtuous cycle: More demand from one user group spurs more from the other.”

• Eisenmann, T., G. Parker, and M.W. Van Alstyne, Strategies for Two-Sided Markets. Harvard Business Review, 2006. 84(10): p. 92- 101.

Users Developers

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Related Works

• Related works: Kortuem, G. and F. Kawsar. Market-based user innovation in the Internet of Things. in Internet of Things (IOT), 2010.

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IoT Application Platforms: Review

• A plethora of hardware: Tags: NFC, RFID “Smart” objects: smart phones, smart sensors, smart cars, smart homes…

• Increased problem of targeting platform for software development

• Limited computational power for some devices or even inexistent (tags or some sensors)

• Review of 14 providers (hardware and/or software) such as pachube, bugswarm, evrythng etc.

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Hardware Platforms Review

• Review: only the hardware that can provide platform for software applicationssoftware libraries are excludedcommercial hardware provided by hardware manufactureropen source hardware intended for DIY

*Bugswarm: 236 third party applications

Hardware platforms

IoT Vendor applications

Third party applications

Open source 3 236 *

Commercial 11 11

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Software Platforms Review

• Review: only the cloud based services that provide platform for software applicationssoftware libraries are excluded

*IoBridge: 256 application widgets

Cloud based platforms

IoT Vendor applications

Third party applications

15 325 *

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Review Analysis

• Lack of software applications particularly for hardware

• Open source hardware generally don’t create application market for software applications

• Successful examples like Bugswarm

• Cloud based services – predominance of personalization widgets

• Emergence of “Data brokerage” platforms that connect heterogeneous hardware and share the data

• Common ground for IoT application market: “Data brokerage” platforms

• SaaS instead of hardware dependent applications

• We need application markets as distribution channels for software applications

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Proposition

• Virtual Thing – virtual proxy to physical connectable objects

• Data Brokerage Platform – cloud based infrastructure designed to collect the data from things and to share the data trough the virtual things

• Application Store – registry of available applications

• Application market – platform for exchange of (third party) software applications

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Architecture

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Design Challenges

• Core services exposed on data brokerage platform (overlay) : design according to developers’ incentives to enable devices for IoT. Semantic for virtual things: identification, content, position, environment etc.

• Managing the compatibility of virtual things with the applications: providing developers with a possibility to target virtual things with their applications

• Middleware: communication protocols e.g. HTTP, Socket, MQTT, etc

• Data Protection manager: clear policies for retention, management and distribution of digital information (e.g., Privacy, etc.)

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Ongoing and Future Work

• Finalizing technical challenges and requirements

• Implementation of the proposed model for application market: http://apps.thingvibe.com(first functional prototype due by end of December 2012)

• Survey study with IoT developers

• Part of PhD research “User Empowerment in the Internet of Things”

• Future work: “ThingBook” : the “facebook “ of things – Socialization of Things

• More detailed review of IoT platforms available at: http://thingvibe.net/2012/iot/iot-state-of-the-art/

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Thank you

Thank you

Questions and answers