Ticket to ride

From school buses to hospital wards, projects involving the Internet of Things are taking off. Is it time traditional IT resellers jumped on board?

By 2020, the Internet of Things (IoT) will play host to 26 billion objects and will generate $1.9tn (£1.2tn) in global economic value, according to Gartner.

Andy Hobsbawm, co-founder of EVRYTHNG, which makes software to manage connected products, believes the "unimaginable collection of possibilities surrounding IoT" is comparable to the invention of the railroad, which paved the way for the industrial revolution in the 19th century.

But is the prospect of connecting everything from livestock to medical equipment to the internet really a tangible opportunity for traditional IT resellers that have until now dealt only in PCs, servers and routers?

While Gartner expects IoT to become a $1tn industry, in August IoT topped its hype cycle chart, reaching the "peak of inflated expectations", which looms above the "trough of disillusionment".

"Last year, IoT evolved into something that is critical to every solution you can think of. It's real to lots of vertical markets"

However, according to Richard Roberts, managing director of Cisco's UK partner and commercial sales organisation, IoT - or the Internet of Everything as Cisco calls it - is no longer just smoke and mirrors.

In a mark of how seriously Cisco takes IoT, the vendor recently launched a training programme aimed at electricians, focusing on smart meters.

Roberts says: "Last year, IoT evolved into something that is critical to every solution you can think of. It's real to lots of vertical markets."

One recent Cisco IoT project involving partners saw Cisco roll out a mobile workflow solution for night-shift staff at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, using a secure wireless infrastructure.

This allowed shift co-ordinators to identify clinicians closest to emergency cases, and connect clinical and administrative workers using tablets and smartphones, removing the need for pagers. According to Cisco, the trial allowed senior nursing staff to increase the amount of their time spent in contact with patients from three to 60 per cent. More than 8,000 clinical hours were returned to the trial hospital through improved efficiency.

Davra cadabra
Cisco has partnered with Davra Networks, an Irish start-up with offices in Sunnyvale, California, as a go-between with VARs on IoT projects.

Davra has developed a cloud-based platform called RuBAN, which takes the raw data being generated by a growing group of connected "things", say a car or an oil rig, and presents it as something that is easy for systems to consume, analyse and relay back to customers.

One project saw Davra team up with Cisco VAR Presidio in Texas, after the reseller was approached by a school authority to kit out a fleet of 300 school buses with WiFi.

With the help of Davra this project expanded from installing a Cisco WiFi router on the school buses to building a connected school bus system that not only tracks the vehicles but can also transmit data such as speed, tyre pressure, and fuel levels.

Davra chief executive Paul Glynn (pictured left) says: "You had a situation where a year ago, the systems integrators would have come on board, plugged in the router and taken a couple of hundred dollars profit and walked away. Now they are actually providing operational services to the client.

"This is IoT in action. Collecting data from the edge of your network and pulling it back to make usable information from that."

According to Glynn, such IoT projects present an opportunity for VARs on this side of the pond, too.

"If IoT is putting a man on the moon, then we are the janitors sweeping the corridors to make it happen"

"There is certainly a big push for IoT in the UK. There are IoT projects going on with the National Grid, with Network Rail and one of the top two bus companies," Glynn says.

One top UK-based Cisco partner beginning to get on board with IoT is Logicalis. Chief technology officer Chris Gabriel (pictured below) says IoT means two "core things" - more connectivity and more data.

"We have a couple of interesting things going on with our business in the UK, where we have had a big data practice for a while. We have also started to look at infrastructure analytics from more connected devices. We have built some interesting stuff down in Brazil where some of this newer stuff is paving the way sooner because they don't have a legacy," Gabriel says.

However, he was unsure whether IoT will be a big money-spinner for Logicalis in the foreseeable future.

"Do I expect it to pay our wages next year? No I don't. Is it a clear and present opportunity in the next six months? I'm not sure. But you have got to be prepared for it," Gabriel says.

"If IoT is putting a man on the moon, then we are the janitors sweeping the corridors to make it happen," he adds.

But while Logicalis is developing IoT plans, many of Cisco's other partners are taking a wait-and-see approach.

Sam Routledge, solutions director at Softcat, says its position is to "watch for the brief" and in the meantime find the right vendors and components so that it is ready when the time comes.

Steve Browell, chief technology officer at Intrinsic, says that while his company does not have an IoT team, it still sees potential to make money out of it.

"I see IoT as a context to define what we already do. For me, it's a great way to talk about how the network needs to remain fit for purpose and able to cope with all the change that is happening now."

There is also a degree of scepticism at an end-user level. According to recent research by Spiceworks, 59 per cent of IT professionals are not actively preparing for the impact IoT could have on their business.

IoT: channel friend or foe?
With any new technology trend, there is always a fear that it may disrupt existing market structures. This is true for IoT, and some are predicting that it may not fit into the channel in the traditional way.

Glynn believes there will be conflict between VARs and vendors during the initial stages of IoT's development.

He points out that nearly all IoT projects will involve a mobile carrier as well as a vendor and systems integrator, adding a third potential source of friction until everyone "finds their place".

There are also worries that IoT will change the channel dynamic and disrupt traditional partnerships between resellers and vendors.
"If you look at Cisco, its biggest growth for channel partners isn't the traditional channel partner, but rather new channel partners who are more application-centric," says Gabriel.

But according to Chris Roberts, head of channel at MTI, IoT represents an opportunity and not a threat for the channel.

"If you look at the way the market is going generally, with the advent of cloud, the businesses that will survive are the ones that are forward-thinking or specialist," Roberts says.

"With IoT, we are starting to make more and more parts of our lives IP-aware and the result of that is a massive amount of data that we have to store, actualise and monetise. For us we see this as a big opportunity and it works to our benefit because we have evolved into being a far more consultative, needs-based business."

Glynn believes that it will be the smaller, more specialised partners that will benefit most from the rise of IoT.

"I think you are going to find the rise of a new type of channel partner. Certainly we are seeing the Dimension Datas, the Fujitsus and the SCCs who are very focused on IoT, but what you are also seeing is some of the smaller players coming up quite quickly," he says.

"We are seeing a huge amount of interest from the smaller, more specialised guys who understand maybe the vending machine or the utility space and can deliver services just as well as the really big players. They are seeing the opportunity to go and kick down the door of some of their clients and say we can do this for you; you don't need to buy them from BT."