What effect do you think sensors are having on industries?
Regarding transforming industries there is a whole digital transformation. Even other areas are beginning to see the uptake as well. Eventually everything will be connected, whether it via Bluetooth or Wifi or cellular. Telit have added Bluetooth and Wifi to our portfolio last year. You will see it in healthcare and likewise, in retail.
More and more things will become portable - I do feel that it is just beginning of the trend. Right now, the industries are going through a phase where solutions have just been discussed and debated. But I think the right solutions are forming now. Once the ecosystem finds or gravitates towards solutions, I think we will start to see the uptake. It is probably slower than what was expected, but it will come eventually.
In the physical world there has not been a feedback loop. IoT provides that end to end feedback loop, it will reduce crew operations and make things more cost-effective. We just need to get and analyze more data, making it more predictive.
Where do you see growth, and do you see it as being application focused or geographic?
Across the board I would say. We definitely see our hardware business continuing to grow. Last year was an anomaly because the industry is going through a technology transition, so the customers kind of slowed down their design process a little bit.
The hardware business will grow. There are more and more sensors - more things need to be connected. I think space is limited to a few IoT companies really and we see ourselves growing in the market share as well.
We also do see the growth in our platform side where things need to be managed and we think we have a solution.
What application areas do you think will use IoT in the future if they don't already?
We think industrial IoT will show a huge transformation.
We think that it is just tip of the iceberg right now. They are still trying to figure out a stable model. How do they connect all of the systems? What data do they need out of it to improve the utilization of the machines and room to do the diagnostics.
Where do you see the market in 10 years?
There are about at least two billion devices shipped today. You are just seeing the beginning. People are getting used to Alexa and the Google Home, now they want all the light switches to be connected and wirelessly controlled.
Let's take your home, if I scan my Wifi router I see about 30 devices and that is almost doubled in the last year or so. Now I have smart plugs!
I think it is going to grow exponentially because more and more things are Wifi connected or Bluetooth connected. You want to control these remotely through your apps, through your Alexas, and that is just in your home.