The IoT market is one of the fastest-growing in the tech space, and for good reason. IoT solutions have the potential to bring unheralded operational and cost benefits to business across industries. We’ve only begun to see what various industries and individual business can achieve by integrating IoT technologies to their processes and workflows. There’s always a catch, though. As technology evolves and new use cases emerge, and deployments continue to increase in size, complexity also grows and presents inherent challenges.
Radix IoT seeks to alleviate some of the complexity with its platform, which combines remote monitoring, process management, and data aggregation intelligence into a single, scalable solution, taking the place of multiple point solutions.
Michael Skurla, co-founder and chief product officer at Radix IoT, will be speaking at IoT Evolution Expo (June 21-24, 2022) in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, addressing some of the challenges of IoT at scale. In advance of the event, I took a few minutes to ask Skurla about what he’s seeing as the IoT space continues to evolve and the opportunities (and challenges) that are emerging.
Please tell us a bit about the latest news at your company.
Radix IoT has doubled in size over the last year. Additionally, due to international interest, we have expanded our footprint with partners to Africa, Australia, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.
What is the greatest opportunity for IoT today?
Michael Skurla, Radix IoT
We all talk about analytics being the holy grail, but the greatest opportunity and at the same time the hurdle (question 3) is, given the explosive growth of connected devices, and the reduction in the cost of these devices; how to actually get all of the data together and into an useable form to make analytics possible. There has been an explosive growth in analytics companies with bold promises.
The problem is getting the data is very expensive, complicated, and at times fragile (particularly at scale). The simple solution here is opting for proprietary, and we have seen a lot of this in building technologies, but that is really no different from control solutions of the last two decades. The promise of IoT is to be able to use anything and everything as a source of data, bring it together and turn it into actionable results that can be tailored to the needs of an organization–often on the fly. This is the area Radix IoT is focusing on. Simplicity in data collection and organization to drive answers, eliminating the complexity that we currently see in integration.
What is your biggest IoT Takeaway from the last year?
Remote monitoring is no longer a nice to have. Remote management is now a staple for more than just top-tier tech. It has proven itself to allow for resilience even in the most trying times of COVID.
What’s your most off-the-wall tech prediction for 2022?
Can’t say it will be 2022, but it’s already happening. Municipal Mesh services. This is already happening with things like Helium and Amazon Sidewalk, but this market will grow rapidly offering people, and ‘things’ connectivity experiences beyond the weight of Wi-Fi and Cellular.
Why is the edge a major area of focus for IoT?
5G has helped with bandwidth and latency if you can get past the hype, but it’s not the answer in totality. Edge processing is critical for speed. More importantly, it offers the ability for resilience in storage diversity that is quite unique and attractive. Look at technologies like EDJX.
How is the Intelligent edge transforming operations?
Edge was very difficult to manage traditionally. The growth of operational technology into Edge has helped to elevate this concern to allow for more consistent remote operations from afar.
Is the Edge bringing the cloud closer to the Enterprise or vice versa?
This is a loaded question. The Edge is bringing the cloud closer to people. An important distinction. This is about data and services to the hyper-local served by Enterprise in many cases.
What do you hope to achieve at the event? Why should people come to IoT Evolution Expo, and its collocated #TechSuperShow events to meet your company?
IoT Evolution is fairly unique as it’s not a Telcom, I.T., controls, or PropTech show; instead, it is a rather robust offering of companies that enables a large collection of industries and verticals through advanced technologies. The relationships built are strong, and the sessions are fantastic, as they are typically in a format that is not being preached to, but conversational in nature to discuss topics in depth.
Why should your session be on the list of must-attend sessions at this year’s conference?
IoT technologies are now everywhere, but the challenge is not what to do with the data, but how to collect it into a method that makes it useful now or for further (unknown) use cases. This is the most critical facet that is often overlooked when people talk about the promise of IoT. My discussion looks to de-mystify this, and provide examples of how this is being conquered.
Explore the disruption and opportunity IoT and its related technologies are creating at IoT Evolution Expo , taking place in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, June 21-24, 2022, part of the #TECHSUPERSHOW experience. Plus, discover advances in edge computing, machine learning and AI; and understand the role these technologies play in ushering in the new age of digital transformation. Participate in more than 100 business and technology conference sessions, workshops and keynotes, meet key suppliers in the exhibit hall, and network with prospective partners and customers during the many networking and other special events during the week.
Edited by
Erik Linask
