So, are all these news stories about trillion-dollar business opportunities in IoT just stories? Most likely the truth is that no one has yet figured out how to make money with IoT but everyone wants to make sure that they are at least seen to have a plan – just in case it does take off. As if to prove this point, ZDnet made a very different assessment of M2M at MWC. I went into more detail on these issues during my recent interview with DeviceLine Radio.

Personally, I firmly believe in the disruptive potential for IoT. It will be disruptive because it will break down the separation between manufacturing industry on one side and IT industry on the other. Manufacturing companies like GE, Bosch and Siemens will increasingly see IT – and Big Data in particular – as a core competency they will need to master in order to sustain a competitive advantage. Simply outsourcing to IT companies will no longer suffice.

We can clearly see this developing as, for example, Bosch is readying its Internet Application Platform and GE is aggressively building out its Silicon Valley presence. At the same time IT companies are trying to position themselves as natural partners for manufactures or as integrators of smart things. Credit has to go to IBM, which has been pushing this trend as part of its Smarter Planet campaign, way ahead of other players.

Meanwhile, telecom carriers are also struggling to decide what IoT will mean for them. It’s easy to see how telecom’s core business can be seen as just a set of “dumb” data pipes. The challenge for this sector will be figuring out how to leverage its considerable assets, like cellular networks, global roaming and integrated billing, to create M2M business platforms. I think that Big Data analytics on the data piped through their network will have to be part of it.

I’m particularly excited about a very ambitious EU-funded project to map an IoT reference architecture. Whether it will really become the reference architecture or simply a collection of best practices is subject to debate but I think the simple fact of trying to pull together all the different knowledge domains into one set of documents is bound to be interesting.

Forbes recently published an article by Alex Brisbourne called The Internet of Things Isn’t as New as It Seems. The article offers some really fascinating insights into the renewal rates for built-in 3G services in iPads and OnStar. Reflecting upon my own positive experiences with a 3G Kindle, I have to agree with Alex that, for connected devices to really reach their potential, connectivity must be simply built-in without requiring a separate subscription.

Another indication of this trend is the fact that car manufacturers are apparently switching from built-in mobile connectivity (requiring the owner to carry a subscription) to tethering off the driver’s existing smart phone. This highlights the challenges telco providers are facing – as summarized in a recent blog post on telco2.net.

Alex Bassi has provided another look at the way IoT is affecting business models, making the point that technology is enabling us to use things without having to own them. In my humble opinion, we’ll see this service-based model, which we normally associate with SaaS and the cloud, extending more and more into the domain of physical “smart” things. We can already see this usage pattern emerging in the automotive sector: car sharing a la Zipcar; limo service from Uber; electric car solutions from Better Place. FastCompany calls this the new “self-service” economy in an article that explores these issues in depth.

To get a good overview of the Internet of Things, I suggest heading over to ZDnet, which regularly posts articles on IoT and M2M. Postscapes, meanwhile, is completely dedicated to tracking IoT – I particularly like this site’s (currently incomplete) directory of companies in the space. There’s also a good collection of relevant essays gathered together on Bundlr.

Finally, here are a couple of links for the technically inclined. First here’s a presentation on the impressive set of open source building blocks developed as part of the m2m.eclipse.org project. Second is a piece that touches upon some technical aspects of the semantic Web that have a good deal of relevance to IoT. This is an area I’m personally very interested in and it might be a good topic to explore in a future post.

In any case, I expect to have plenty of interesting things to report on after Mobile World Congress. If you’re attending the show, be sure to stop by the Layer 7 booth for a chat. We’ll be at booth  #8.1A47 in the App Planet zone.

As usual, we’re likely to see a very broad sweep across various areas of telco innovation and mobile strategy but there are some fundamental questions facing the community and these will dominate many conference sessions, seminars and exhibits:

1. Connected Living
   As the Internet of Things gains momentum, how can the service provider community deliver the kind of enriched connectivity the broader ecosystem increasingly demands?
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2. Mobile Commerce
   For years, mobile has been a key banking and commerce tool for certain markets. With the rise of NFC (near field communication) and success stories like the Starbucks mobile payment app, will mobile become the preferred payment instrument for us all?
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3. Next-Generation Communications
   The world of communications moves quickly – too quickly even for service providers at times, with the runaway success of technologies of iMessage, WhatsApp and – next – WebRTC. In this ever-innovating world of mobile communications, can service providers regain some ground and demonstrate their value?

Layer 7 has answers to these questions and will be at MWC, demonstrating a variety of solutions that can help service providers address the challenges ahead. For example:

1. We have been collaborating with AT&T and have planned an M2M solution that will capture anonymous information about visitors as they move around the exhibition halls. This information will be presented as intelligent APIs via the Layer 7 platform.
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2. Security and authentication are very familiar terms to Layer 7 and we’ll be showing how mobile payments can be easily and securely integrated with a mobile app without compromising the user experience.
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3. “Communications as a Service” opens many opportunities for service providers and the new partnership between Layer 7 and Voxeo Labs will show how easy it can be to capitalize on these opportunities.

Come and meet the team at booth 8.1A47 in the App Planet zone or email info@layer7.com to schedule a meeting. See you there!

Tomorrow (that’s Friday November 9) at 10:30am, I’ll be discussing the challenges of mobile app UX at QCon in San Francisco. In a presentation called “HTML5 Cross-Platform Mobile Apps Integrating APIs”, I’ll be outlining significant challenges around API-driven mobile apps, as well as mistakes developers commonly make, and suggesting best practices for addressing them.

I hope you can make, if you’re at the show. Also, be sure to visit Layer 7 at booth #11.

I was particularly impressed by the range of industries and organizations that were represented in the audience. We had developers from large enterprise shops, specialized Internet-focused start-ups and even a few entrepreneurs just getting started. I think this range of interest is indicative of the value of Web APIs for all and bodes well for a continued investment in designing great APIs, rather than just chucking them out into the ether.

Next up on the tour is our Paris API Workshop taking place tomorrow (Tuesday, October 16).  As always, we have a great set of speakers lined up, with Martin Duval from bluenove talking about building developer outreach programs and Benoit Herard from Orange Labs discussing their API launch. France has a  great start-up culture and a reputation for enterprises like Orange driving innovation, so I’m expecting good conversation, some excellent API Management presentations and – if I’m lucky – some great wines.

Not surprisingly, they all emphasized their security and management credentials as being central to their value propositions. Each vendor took a different approach to protecting the welfare of the enterprise but in the end, we all promised we could defend organizations against risk, both technological and financial. What we neglected to mention, I realized afterwards, was that a little risk is sometimes good.

Don’t get me wrong, security is something I take seriously. We at Layer 7 guard some of the most sensitive government and commercial APIs against cyber attack and misuse. But there is a downside to an unbalanced emphasis on insecurity – and that is fear. Some fear ensures prudence. Too much fear can arrest the progress of whole industries.

In a few short years, smart mobile devices have completely transformed how we communicate, socialize, shop and get entertained. Almost overnight, an economy has grown up around mobile apps. This same app explosion is poised to change how enterprises function, by completely un-tethering employees, while providing a way for companies to reach their customers beyond the PC and TV. But to get there, enterprises will have to encourage app innovation and the only way to achieve that is by opening up.

Now, no one says that opening up needs to be a foolhardy effort. Opening up data and applications to mobile apps needs to be done in a guarded and prudent manner. But in all the talk around mobile security, it’s important not to stifle innovation around mobile development. Security has to go hand-in-hand with connectivity.

For the Layer 7 perspective on these service technology trends, come see our presentations throughout the week. On Monday, I’ll be speaking about how traditional SOA technologies such as the enterprise service bus (ESB) need to adapt to an evolving IT landscape. On Tuesday, our CTO Scott Morrison will be giving a closing keynote about “The New Governance”.  Wednesday brings an API Management Workshop at the Canadian High Commission, hosted by Layer 7 along with our customer MoneySupermarket.com and analyst firm RedMonk.

Layer 7 is a Founding Partner at the Symposium and we’re excited to welcome a who’s who of analysts, vendors and enterprises to join in the conversation. These illustrious attendees have helped to define the industry and revolutionize enterprise IT – and I’m looking forward to insightful speakers and great networking opportunities. For a more intimate conversation, stop by our booth (#110) to see a demo or discuss your SOA, cloud, API or mobile use cases.

London has shown an incredible amount of enthusiasm for sporting events this summer, from the Olympics and Paralympics to the Tour de France, which was won by a Brit for the first time in its history. Let’s keep that excitement going – see you at the Symposium!

On the surface, there’s no inconsistency between talking API and talking SOA: “API” usually denotes an implementation style; “SOA” an architectural approach to integration. A decade ago, SOAP and WS* formed an ideal implementation of SOA – or so thought the committees that drafted the supporting specifications behind what became known as Web services.

Like all well-intentioned products of committee, Web services represented an act of compromise, accommodating many competing interests. But their complexity became self-limiting and so Web APIs, with their familiar Web-like approach to handling machine-to-machine interactions, have become the latest hope for practical SOA among enterprises and telco carriers.

For carriers, the race to APIfication has a special urgency. With the explosion of apps running on smart phones, smart TVs and smart everything, the carrier is often relegated to providing a pipe and subsidizing devices. APIs give them hope by allowing them to expose their various assets as programmatic interfaces that can be leveraged by internal and external app developers.

This empowers carriers to stay competitive and relevant by giving them the ability to deliver software and services into the marketplace faster. APIs also allow carriers to adapt and react to failure more efficiently. If one idea doesn’t work, a telco can quickly retool and offer a new set of services that may have more appeal.

But if Web APIs are to deliver on the SOA vision of agility and reuse, they will need some of the same plumbing that made Web services work. Specifically, SOA Gateways were essential in making Web services practical. They provided a controlled, simple and economical way to connect services, regardless of differences in implementation.

Similarly, for APIs to be successful in the carrier market, telcos will need to implement API-ready SOA Gateways – or “API Gateways” – that can offload all the abstraction, adaptation, orchestration, security, SLA and identity brokering from the API logic. As with SOA, governance belongs not in the API but in an intermediary that mediates interactions with other applications. History repeats.

Everyone wants to capture the long-tail developer but, for many carriers and non-carriers alike, developers in dorm rooms don’t generate revenue. Increasingly, the focus of many enterprise API publishers is on internal users, other enterprise customers and even partners. The mass market is great but, for APIs, it doesn’t always pay immediate benefits.

API goals around revenue, reach and retention are often realized faster by programs that expose APIs to internal developers who can turn around new services faster, customers that can build revenue-driving software faster or partners that can expand collaborative channels across mobile and cloud.

No two API consumers are the same, which means publishers need to build diversity into their API strategies from the get-go. But building flexibility without creating complexity can be tricky. And now for the Layer 7 plug…

API platforms like Layer7′s ease the whole diversification thing. Why build different APIs or API versions for different customers when you don’t have to? One of the popular features of the Layer 7 API Management Suite is the way customized versions of an API can be rendered virtually and exposed to target communities of API consumers, at will.

Something to consider – whether you’re a carrier or not!

This may sound like a typical tech conference but REST Fest is hardly that. Taking its cue from OpenSpaces and similar events, REST Fest is organized by attendees, for attendees. For example, one of the days is devoted to everyone hacking on the same general topic. Another is dedicated to short workshops, all presented by selected registrants.

Similarly, all the general session talks are delivered by the attendees themselves. That’s because one of the “rules” of REST Fest is “everyone talks and everyone listens”. When you sign up to join REST Fest, you are expected to deliver at least a five-minute lightning talk – and there are no exceptions!

Notable presenters will include keynote speaker Stu Charlton (former CTO of Elastra), Matt Bishop (Senior Product Architect at Elastic Path), Pat Cappelaere (currently working on NASA’s SensorWeb project), Leonard Richardson (co-author of O’Reilly’s RESTful Web Services), Sam Ramji (Head of Strategy at Apigee) and yours truly.

I feel privileged to be co-chair of REST Fest and I’m pleased to note that Layer 7 is the event’s Head Sponsor this year. Hope to see you there!