Cisco, SAP, Accenture and Telus called for M2M suppliers enterprises to collaborate within the IoT environment.

Ben Salama, global connected operations lead at Accenture Mobility said industry 4.0 will be the fourth industrial revolution with potential gains to the British economy of $531 billion over the next 15 years.

Accenture said the IoT is a complex system with 212 billion sensors and 50 billion network onnections. Mr Salama said: "The IoT vendor landscape has tripled in the last 20 months alone."

John O’Donnell, an IOT sales lead at Cisco said that partnering is key in this area in order to fully achieve the potential $18 trillion of value from IoT over the next years.

He added: "Unplanned downtime and outrage in a factory is gone. Machines can predict failure before it happens allowing business to carry on."

Mr O’Donnell stated today’s IoT will be tomorrow’s Web of Things (WoT), a time of open systems that allows organisations to be more adaptive and responsive, and robots will be everywhere.

Connect, transform and reimagine

David Parker, global vice president for SAP IoT said IoT adoption will be based on "connect, transform and reimagine".

He said: "IoT is connecting information, people and things. It is making us more insightful, more human and between 2013 and 2022 we expect an increased revenue of $14.4 trillion globally."

The VP introduced the concept of "from edge to core" where anything, anywhere, anytime, just needs to connect to a device. He said it is important to contextualise data with business data to take full advantage of IoT.

Mr Parker said: "We will be feeding information from the core."

SAP also mentioned its connected logistics platform currently working with Harley Davidson enabling responsive manufacturing.

Mr Parker said: "Our aim is to gradually interconnect all modes of transport." He added: "There is a movement towards digitalisation.

"No one in this room wants to be the next Codec or Blockbuster. We will try to be the next Google or Yahoo."

Why now?

Cisco is also targeting different angles of the IoT and M2M industries.

Mr O’Donnell said: "IoT is not just a corporate perspective, it is a global perspective."

While admitting he prefers not to have internet access during wintertime after a "broadband incident" last December, the IoT Manager explained that the "enterprise value of M2M is significant".

He said: "This is happening now because things are cheaper, smaller and the power of data centres and cloud or inter-cloud is also changing."

Mr O’Donnel said apps are changing the world, for example, "airbnb allows to book hotel rooms" and "apps like this are challenging the business system".

Cisco highlighted how the cloud is letting robots down in the meantime. Machines are faster than the cloud making it important for developers to look at new ways to speed up cloud data analysis and reducing latency to a minimum.

The company’s FOG solution sends back meaningful information to the cloud "bringing intelligence close the environment".

Preciding Mr O’Donnel was Shawn Sanderson, Vice President, Internet of Things at TELUS who said: "I believe we can drive the growth of IoT by developing an IoT environment that works together.

"Bringing partners together, allowing our customers to select the best for their needs. There is always room for novelty and adaptability."

The VP added "IoT is not about tech, is about improving our lives" through the use of data.

Security in IoT still to be addressed

Securtiy within IoT is an area that has been not look at as it should be, the four attendees admitted.

Mr Sanderson said: "Personal data security hasn’t been fully addressed yet. Where does the data from an app goes?"

Telus told the audience that as more data comes out of IoT and M2M "we need to find ways to analyse it in data centres and databases".

Cisco’s John O’Donnel said there seems to be "paranoia about cybersecurity" but also that not having a security police "is no way to protect yourself".

Robots taking over?

The panel closed with a discussion on how developers can make sure humans control machines and not the other way round. The key players were all in tune and said this depends on the way we look at the definition of the technology itself.

"Is preparing your coffee taking over?," asked Tellus Vice President.

SAP and Cisco generally agreed that consumers’ life automation would be mainly of the consumers’ responsability themselves.

Cisco said: "It is all about choice. It is what you feel comfortable with. Consumers will have to decide what they feel machines can do for them and up to where they should go."

Mr O’Donnell said the way people think and social behaviour will set the limits of where robots can go in one’s life, but admitted "dollars and benefits to organisations will lead to automation control".

And that’s what SAP believes too: "From a business perspective, that is where the world is going to. They want to go full automation.

"Machines talking to themselves, automatically expressing a desire for when they need to be repaired."

Mr Parker also admitted it will be a personal choice the consumer will have to make but he himself will have "no robot to brush his teeth".