Amit over at Moblize has also been looking at the sudden flurry of PR about smart services. He's wondering if there is a way to categorize them. I've been wondering, too, and would be interested to see what response he gets.
Understand, I'm only interested in the subject relative to manufacturing. There are a ton of potential M2M/smart services markets out there. I was introduced to the concept in 1999 at a Motorola conference where they used an example of the connected Coke machine. Glen Almendinger of Harbor Research, the prophet of the movement, likes to talk about how there are billions of electronic devices in the world. Now, if only they were all connected, think how huge the market would be. Axeda, which has morphed twice from its PC Soft roots, now is totally focused on smart services and starting to show some revenues--but the last press release I saw didn't mention much in manufacturing. Much like the Zigbee movement, it's looking for traction in places such as building automation. (Maybe I should start some extended coverage there? What do you think?)
Amit, the other enabling technology is something many like to call the "pervasive Internet," which I believe encompasses the increasingly availability of Internet connections plus the massive adoption of Web programming tools (http, XML, etc.).
When I look at the market from just my manufacturing niche, this whole idea looks to be a long way from adoption in numbers. But, that's not to say that it isn't already building some small businesses right now. Every entrepreneur is dreaming for the quick take off and cash out. That may not happen (although nPhase did cash out) quickly. But you never know about adoption cycles. Perhaps somewhere they'll hit a critical mass.
I may have been a bit unfair poking fun at a PR person (see my previous post on the topic), but as regular readers know I love professional PR people and have low tolerance for the others. Maybe I'm just too serious about information.
7:17:14 AM 
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