BARCELONA, Spain — The future is set to be all about the connected world: connecting wearables, cars, homes, cities and enterprises. But that connection brings up a very complex scenario due to security and privacy concerns. At a keynote session during this week’s Mobile World Congress 2015 event, CEOs from different industries discussed the keys to the connected lifestyle.
As the adoption of the “Internet of Things” increases, many concerns are on security, and if and how data privacy will be managed. Ralph de la Vega, president and CEO of AT&T Mobility and Business Solutions, highlighted the role of devices, saying that in the future the smartphone will be the remote control in our lives. “Challenges will be on privacy, security and effortless,” he explained.
In addition, de la Vega highlighted several business opportunities in the IoT space, giving an example of connected trash cans that will let us know when they are full. “I didn’t think I would see cash when seeing garbage cans,” he said.
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Connected world will drive change in industry
On the same subject, SAP CEO Bill McDermott noted that the IoT is already transforming companies’ business models, and claimed that enterprises should reinvent their business models based on expected changes. He also raised the discussion on how big data and the analysis of the huge amount of data now being delivered have the power to change industries.
Ericsson CEO Hans Vestberg noted that mobile broadband and cloud, along with systems, standardize scale and partnership are key drivers of the transformation and key to connected life. “Network society is a big transformation that we see in the industry, because it changes the logics,” he said, adding that he believes investments around the connected life will grow at a rate of 3 to 5% per year.
Disclosure: Travel costs to Barcelona were paid by Celistics.