M2M, Internet of Things, and the Industrial Internet of Things - an interview with ICON

Does the Channel understand M2M/IoT? How much education is there still to be done? What is your view of the M2M market ?

Mark Shane, ICON Sales Director commented

“Right now M2M/IoT is not understood in the channel. Ask the average reseller if they deploy M2M/IoT solutions and they will probably say no. Ask them what M2M/IoT means and they will most likely quote the examples of a refrigerator ordering milk or home security monitored through a smartphone. These are the popular consumer examples of M2M/IoT. However, in the business field many of ICON’s channel partners have been deploying M2M/IoT solutions for some time, often without realising it, and earning a healthy return from their efforts.”

“For example at its basic level M2M/IoT is about monitoring a sensor or a device and sending a message to a system, a person or some other thing. This is what solutions from our vendor partners Multitone, BlueSky Wireless, and Fusion are built to do and are already doing in the field.”

“The problem is, the terminology M2M/IoT is not understood. The industry needs to do two things. Firstly, it must explain what is included under the umbrella of M2M/IoT. Secondly, it needs to dispel the myth that solutions are futuristic and high tech – consumer solutions probably are, but many business solutions are mundane, available today, and already being used in hospitality, healthcare and manufacturing. These are part of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) which many expect to be one of the biggest opportunities of the next few years and will ultimately dwarf the consumer IoT. ”

 

What type of solutions are currently available and being actively sold by resellers?

In business, M2M/IoT functionality is realised using solutions available from ICON’s vendor partners Multitone, BlueSky Wireless, and Fusion.

Solutions are used in task management: for example in the hospitality sector housekeeping scheduling is linked to Smartphones as room and mini bar status are monitored and building maintenance solutions are increasingly using M2M/IoT to enable a reactive response to problems as they occur.


Other applications include alarm management: this includes fridge and blood alarms as well as patient monitoring support. All these are achievable with the technology from ICON’s vendor partners and the number, variety of applications is expected to increase as users, and reseller partners become more familiar with what can be achieved.

 

How big is the M2M/ IoT opportunity? How will the M2M/ IoT market evolve over the next 12 -18 months and -what is the best strategy for a business wanting to enter this market?

The opportunity for M2M/IoT solutions is growing and will continue to grow.

There is an urgent need in hospitality to manage fire security. In addition, with the availability of enterprise smartphone devices such as Spectralink Pivot the range of business processes being controlled with M2M/IoT is increasing.


ICON’s solution resellers are already benefiting from the M2M/IoT technologies and some have built up a significant installed base in sectors such as hospitality. Opportunities can present themselves either because the client is looking for a fire solution, or out of an opportunity for a value added component of a traditional telecoms sale, or as a solution attached to an enterprise smartphone sale. In either case, the best way for a channel reseller to tap into this lucrative market is to align themselves with a solutions focused distributor such as ICON.

The future of telecommunications platforms or Hosted versus CPE solutions

Cloud based or CPE solutions, which one will prevail?

Mark Shane, Sales Director at ICON says.  

 “Cloud based hosted telephony will not displace CPE PBX telephone solutions in the short, medium or long term.  The last time ICON looked at the market hosted solutions accounted for only around 10% of the total.  That is significant, but given the time hosted solutions have been available it’s not the performance one would expect of a revolutionary displacement solution some claim it to be.”  

"ICON supplies the channel with the Wave CPE IP-PBX solution, but” says Mark “we are not talking up the market just because we supply CPE solutions.  It’s because of our experience in supplying the endpoints market that we are convinced that CPE solutions are here to stay” 

ICON provides endpoint solutions that can be deployed in traditional CPE environments or as a mobility upgrade for the desk endpoint provided with the hosted solution.   Few of the Spectralink solutions are being installed on hosted solutions.  The majority, if not all, are going onto CPE equipment. 

These Spectralink handset solutions can also be deployed in remote offices in a quasi-hosted solution by connecting them remotely to the CPE IP-PBX at head office. However, most companies opt to provide remote office communications using the multi-site capability of the IP-PBX solutions such as the Wave IP-PBX solutions.

“In the channel the popularity of hosted telephony does not seem to be as great as the hype would suggest” says Mark

Microsoft Lync not a meteoric success

 “Microsoft Lync has not been the meteoric success it was claimed it was going to be a few years back.” Says Mark  

ICON distribute the only Microsoft approved voice mobility endpoint solution for Lync solutions and although pundits claim that Microsoft is one of the top 3 suppliers next to Cisco and Avaya, ICON is not seeing this reflected in its sales of Spectralink handsets for Lync.  

 “However,” says Mark “Lync is one of the main solutions in market and the fact the channel has not embraced this solution as fully as it could does not mean that it will not become one of the top channel solutions in the long term.  ICON is already geared up for Lync’s success and can provide and support channel partners with Spectralink handset solutions needed by Lync”

The future is a smart PBX  

Hosted solutions have not traditionally competed with the CPE solutions distributed by ICON and long-term their impact on our Channel Partner CPE business is not expected to change radically from what it is today.  Hosted telephony is not a disruptive technology that will change the landscape forever.  Nevertheless, it does have a place in the market and offers valuable solution for some customers. 

Looking at the market from the perspective of a hosted PBX or CPE PBX is as outdated as looking at an android or IoS handset and seeing only a telephone.  Like cell phones, PBX’s have morphed into platforms for running business apps and delivering solutions.  The future is not one of hybrid PBX solutions. It is a future of “smart” PBX’s.   Smart PBX’s, such as Wave IP, which, amongst other things, integrate with cloud based or on premises based business applications,  will manage the communications services of your road warriors and report on the performance of your advertising.

You can see this happening today.  The “smart” PBX Wave IP solution is used by US automotive dealerships as an adjunct to their DMS/CRM solutions.  With it, they track the performance of advertising campaigns, manage the workload on the parts and service departments and much more – they also use it to make calls.