Global tech giants are recently speeding up their efforts to take the leadership in Internet of Things - the network of things embedded with electronics, software and sensors to enable them to exchange data and operate without human interruptions.
Market research firm Gartner estimated that around 25 billion things - smartphones, tablets, consumer electronics, automobiles and wearable device - would be connected with each other by 2020.
With the IoT market expected to take off soon and the current smartphone market being sluggish, dominant players in the mobile industry - Google, Apple and Samsung Electronics, Qualcomm, Huawei and Xiaomi – are making an all-out effort to preoccupy the IoT market.
California-based Internet giant Google unveiled its IoT operating system project Brillo at the Google I/O developer summit on Thursday. Google Brillo is designed to run on and connect devices anything from a washing machine to a rubbish bin with Google technologies.
Google senior vice-president Sundar Pichal said Brillo will be “an underlying operating system for the Internet of Things,” at the summit.
The main feature of Brillo is openness. He said it supports extensive hardware platforms and chipsets. Google has already dominated more than 80 percent of the world’s smartphone operating system market with an openness strategy of attracting diverse hardware manufacturers. Market observers say that Google may dominate the IoT market once again with the similar strategy it had on the smartphone’s operating system market. The Internet giant is set to unveil Brillo to developers in the third quarter of this year.
Market observers say Google’s partner Samsung Electronics in the smartphone market may no longer be the ally of Goole in the IoT market as the South Korean tech giant is also ramping up efforts to take the leadership in IoT.
Early this month, Samsung Electronics introduced Artik, its new platform for IoT, following the roll-out of Smart TV equipped with Tizen, Samsung’s open-source operating system, early this year.
Artik is an open-source IoT platform comprised of application processor, communications chips and sensors. This enables Samsung Galaxy to control smart devices and home appliances at home. Samsung said it is carrying out tests with an aim of commercializing it next year, and of applying into all of its electronics and devices by 2020.
Sohn Young-kwon, chief of Samsung Strategy and Innovation Center, said, “IoT developers in each area will use Artik to develop IoT devices faster and more simply.”
Global smartphone leader Apple is also set to announce its smart home platform Home Kit at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference 2015, which kicks off in June. Home Kit enables users to control smart devices using iPhone’s home application. The firm has already partnered with home appliances companies including Osram and Philips.
Other global tech companies are also following suit. Qualcomm, an American global semiconductor company, is going ahead in the wearable device market based on its Snapdragon chipset. It is also leading IoT software platform through its AllSeen Alliance. Intel Corporation, an American multinational technology company, recently unveiled Curie, module for wearable technology, along with other application products.
Chinese companies Xiaomi unveiled its smart home platform Mi Home at CeBIT exhibition in Germany this March and Huawei also recently introduced its Agile IoT platform.
Market watchers say, “Tech companies are paying keen attention to the market as they believe the individual markets – smartphones, smart TV, smart home appliances and smart cars – will eventually be gathered into a home IoT ecosystem someday.
A.T. Kearney, a global management consulting firm, predicted that economic scale of IoT-related industry would grow to 6 percent level of total global economy. Out of around $100 trillion of global economic scale, the IoT industry is expected to grab around $6 trillion.
By Yeon Choul-woong
