AUSTIN, TEXAS – The “Internet of Things” is rapidly changing everything from computing models to economic activity, Cisco EVP and CDO Pankaj Patel told attendees at the IEEE GlobeCom show in Austin, Texas on Dec. 10.
“I hope you’re ready,” Patel said, “because the journey has already started. Wait until you see what Internet of everything can do for us.”
He traced the history of connected devices worldwide, which amounted to just 1,000 connected devices in 1984. By 1992, that number had grown to 1 million and, by 2008, 1 billion. Projections point to some 50 billion connected devices by 2020.
“What Internet of everything is doing … it’s really bringing the connection between the people and the process, things and data, together. And giving us the ability to derive value from those network connections.”
Patel said a connected world has “changed the way we all live, the way we work, the way we collaborate and the way we connect with human beings.”
He gave the example of ride-sharing services Uber and Lyft, which are changing the paradigm of urban transportation while simultaneously drawing the ire of established taxi and shuttle providers.
Patel said the two companies “have broken down the traditional models and given a very simple, on-demand delivery that you can access form a smartphone. These guys are disrupting the business model in a way that we can’t even imagine.”
He said Airbnb is doing the same thing to the hotel industry and that Apple Pay is revolutionizing point-of-sale transactions.
“All of these disruptions are being driven by the major technologies that all of us here contribute to and work on.”
Looking ahead, Patel said: “IoT is all about the intelligent connectivity of physical devices driving massive gains for business growth, for efficiency and for quality-of-life. This is the new essential infrastructure. This is giant and the impact it’s going to have on our lives every day is absolutely phenomenal.”