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Those who follow my articles know that I like to make comparisons between the internet of things and TV shows and movies. For this article, I have selected the famous show The Walking Dead.
When preparing this article, I read “The Real Walking Dead: Surviving the Software-Defined Zombie Apocalypse” by Scott Noteboom and thought, well, I am not alone. Like Scott, I see a lot of similarities between IoT technology and biology.
Many companies are thinking about their survival after the apocalypse that will be produced by the mix of IoT, AI, and blockchain. CEOs must make decisions that prevent their companies from disappearing or worse, becoming walking dead. And one of the most important decisions will be to choose their travel companions well in order to build a strong ecosystem capable of resisting the most adverse scenarios one might think of.
IoT technologies and services that companies need to implement to survive the apocalypse are composed of many apparently simple blocks: devices, protocols, edge computing, fog computing, communication networks, platforms, cloud, analytics, AI, machine learning, blockchain, security, and applications. But the selection of the vendors and the integration of all of them in business processes and systems is complex, and there are few companies that can boast of having achieved it.
You are probably tired of hearing that IoT is very complicated and the ecosystem is very fragmented. You may feel that many companies and products turn into the walking dead. But no one has the crystal ball to know which IoT companies will be around in 10 years, no less one, two or three years. Some of them are perhaps in the phase of becoming when just a couple of years ago they were in good health and enjoyed the sympathy of the analysts.
If you have been living in a sanctuary, isolated, it will not last for a long time. You will soon receive the visit of survivors and walking dead. You have to decide whether to accept or fight the survivors, and you must protect your community against the zombies.
The good news is that you are not alone. During the last five years I have lived 24/7 by and for IoT. I have been monitoring and analyzing the IoT landscape and have seen many IoT startups appear and some disappear. I have seen large companies make absurd purchases or sell IoT businesses when they have not been able to obtain the expected return. That´s why I am able to provide wise advice and recommendations on avoiding being trapped by partnerships with the potential walking dead of IoT and help you build robust and scalable IoT systems.
Do not walk blind alone among The Walking Dead of IoT.
