We asked several CIOs and IT leaders, "What is the one thing about the Internet of Things that excites you about the future, either in your industry or beyond?" Their answers ranged from extremely specific IoT projects that are currently underway to ideas about how IoT may be used strategically in enterprises in the future.
Working with sensors
"The fact that we have the prevalence of all this sensor technology, and the ability for these things to gather as much data as they do, for them to communicate with data stores where you have technology that’s crunching large chunks of data and then returning either relevant actions or suggestions – all this is terribly exciting. I do see a lot of hurdles before this becomes the nirvana."
- Enrique Smith, head of corporate integration, BlackRock
CIO engagement level increases
"It goes two ways. What excites me is the ease of data collection and automation you can do with the Internet of Things. The amount of data available to you is just incredible. We’re now looking at a lot of technologies being wiped out from the classroom side and being replaced with other smart devices. So that is very exciting. The scary part is you now have so many network-connected devices you have to secure because these are entry points for bad guys to get through. That creates a whole new challenge. And your network capacity planning shifts dramatically – how many more network ports you need, how much additional wireless capacity. We have to engage with every aspect of it."
- Link Alander, officer of technology services, Lone Star College
Using big data with IoT
"We’ve always had tons of opportunity to optimize and cut waste that we couldn’t get to because we didn’t have the data collection capability, let alone the data analysis. The Internet of Things is starting to change that. You have this fascinating opportunity, between the data collection tools and machine learning capabilities, to dig into some of these things that we couldn’t previously measure and start to improve them."
- James P. (Jim) Maclennan, senior vice president and CIO, IDEX, Corp.
Unlimited opportunities
"I believe that as an industry and technology we’re at the beginning of the journey to different types of IoT devices and data sources and usage. What excites the customers that I speak with is not the proliferation of devices, but what is possible when you can develop new experiences for their users. We already have customers looking to use our platform in a variety of use cases such as home automation, the connected car or telemetry data for agriculture technology and analysis of weather patterns, to predict what the crop and yield should be. The Internet of Things is quickly shifting to the Internet of Analytics."
- Ramin Sayar, CEO of Sumo Logic
New gadgets on the horizon
"For me, it means lots of interesting technical things to play with. I get lots of gadgets and play with lots of different technologies, and it’s just fascinating to think about the things I can do with toaster ovens. That’s a trite answer, but it is how I think about it. The flip side is, wow, we’ve got lots more vulnerabilities; that’s job security for people like me. That’s the bright, sunny side and the dark, dour side of the picture."
- Dr. Bruce Roberts, Engineering Team Lead, DomainTools, Seattle and Luxembourg
