If anyone has any doubts about the reality of what is being called “The Internet of Things,” doubt no longer.
When Cisco CEO John Chambers says there’s a new $14.4 trillion global tech market emerging in the next 10 years, people tend to listen. And the company recently launched a new business group that was reported by Search Networking.com as already having about 500 employees and a $200 million R&D budget.
The Internet of Things (IoT) refers to wireless sensors and chips in all sorts of everyday items controlled, measured and connected via the Internet. Business Insider reports that Cisco prefers to refer to the trend as the “Internet of Everything” and defines it as “the intelligent connection of people, processes, data and things.”
Just the title – “The Internet of Things and the future of manufacturing” – of a recently published interview by a pair of McKinsey & Company consultants with top executives at German engineering and software companies reveals the significance of this emerging trend. They refer to IoT as the “fourth industrial revolution, a new wave of technological changes that will decentralize production control and trigger a paradigm shift in manufacturing.”
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