A long and winding road. Here's a post from Steve Pazol on his M2M blog. He analyzes a cellular firm purchase by Sprint Nextel. It's a torturous discussion trying to figure out if this will be good for M2M as Steve knows it.
M2M can mean "machine-to-machine" communications. This is a type of SCADA system, but automated and more ubiquitous than that trationally know in process control or water/wastewater applications. The supposedly unique thing about what has been called M2M is that the communications is via cellular networks (rather than radio, wired line or Internet). Proponents quote the millions of devices that could be communicating as the potential market size.
My take on this has a couple of points. First, the cellular carriers seem to be increasingly discouraged about the huge incomes possible and seem to be bailing out. Couple with the second point--sure there are millions of devices, but where is the business model? It's still about the application. I don't think each of the millions of devices will need to dial up. Most likely the communications will go through aggregators and gateways. So the market size starts to shrink. Next companies will apply it only for applications that make sense. Only remote areas with cellular coverage (potentially an oxymoron) may be the economical locations. There are other wireless LANs under development that could be withering competition for cellular.
I asked Steve on his blog (but the M2M blog does not allow comments--a VERY un-bloglike policy) about the business model months ago. He's never responded. I think the business model lies with those companies who can leverage the entire suite of SCADA tools while proving the business value to their customers. In other words, let's expand the definition of M2M and its market potential.
6:12:09 PM 
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