Carry the Message of M2M

This week’s M2M Evolution Conference & Expo, collocated with ITEXPO Miami 2013, features the most cellular and satellite carriers participating in the M2M event ever, and that does not include the audience which has a few more…

Given that market for cellular is rapidly getting saturated and even Apple is leveling off, it’s no wonder that the carriers are seeing M2M as the next big growth opportunity. What is interesting is the way they are reaching out to customers. 

For example, some have several integrators working with them as the primary contact point. Others have the role of prime source and then sourcing the solutions. Still, others are using the app market to deliver solutions that highlight an expertise. 

In some cases, their business development teams are working with experts which are the prime movers in the company. For example, automotive and medical companies are often looking for large scale deployments that source to a prime partner in geographic areas.

And of course the fulfillment to support such large scale solutions often brings in many carriers, but one is normally the lead. 

All of this brings up interesting issues; we are at a point in M2M where large scale is the current market.

If you listen to the carriers at the show you can see they are looking to penetrate from the top down. 

This is not really M2M’s history. Most deployments have been smaller. For example, in this quarter’s M2M Evolution Magazine, I looked at Fleet Management. I was amazed how many small companies were supporting M2M, although only two used the term. Even at that level, most companies had partnered with a minimum of three companies.

This suggests the carriers are going to end up in very similar situations and since they are looking to be in every market, which means that a service layer strategy has to be developed for the rollouts to be universal. That is the point of the oneM2M Standards working group.

While at the show, I am going to pay close attention as to who references oneM2M and who does not mention the standard. My guess is that it will be about 60 percent not pointing to the standards work. We can give you service now, but it will take two years to get it ready to roll out anywhere else the same way. 

Bottom line the big carriers are looking for big gains.