In today’s world, it takes a village to build the right IoT solution, requiring partnerships with companies that specialize in sensors, hardware, aggregation, cyber security, analytics, and more. In this post originally published on LiveWorx’ website, Deloitte’s Chief IoT technologist Robert Schmid discusses building that village.

As the Internet of Things (IoT) matures, we see many parallels to the development of the internet. Both have had many companies, governments, universities, and individual inventors contributing to their advancement over time. Let’s take a look at some similarities between the internet and IoT and let me describe some of the benefits of building your IoT ecosystem.

Back in the 1960s, the U.S. government introduced a very early version of the internet – ARPANet, in response to the Cold War. For about 10 years, only a few computers were part of this network until the government expanded it to include some universities, starting with Hawaii’s ALOHANet (1). It sounds simple, but it took literally decades to solidify some of the first technologies, such as packet switching, internet protocol, routing, or HTML (2). And this wasn’t all done solely by the government, some Steve-Jobs type, or any secret computer society. It was the culmination of efforts from pioneers in the government, universities all over the world, leading companies, and a few notable people like Vinton Cerf or Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who invented the modern World Wide Web.

Notice that all of the technologies are simply called “the internet” – the network connection, the data servers that store the information, and even simply the concept of sharing information. As I pointed out in another post, IoT will become just another part of “the internet”.

Read the full article on LiveWorx’ website.

Deloitte Digital at LiveWorx 2017

Deloitte Digital’s IoT team will be at LiveWorx 2017 technology conference hosted by PTC, May 22 to 25 in Boston. Head over to the LiveWorx 2017 website for details on the conference.

With our “Think Big, Start Small, Scale Fast” methodology and our exceptional ecosystem of alliances, Deloitte Digital can help organizations jumpstart their IoT journey. To learn more, contact Deloitte’s Chief IoT Technologist, Robert “Mr. IoT” Schmid at roschmid@deloitte.com or watch Robert’s weekly coffee chats with leaders in the IoT space.

Robert Schmid is Deloitte Consulting LLP’s Chief IoT Technologist. Co-authors Ryan Manes and Mark Neier are practitioners in the Supply Chain & Manufacturing Operations practice.

(1): http://www.history.com/topics/inventions/invention-of-the-internet
(2): http://webfoundation.org/about/vision/history-of-the-web