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Licensing, Entitlement Management Important for Monetizing IoT

By Ed Silverstein, TMCnet Contributor

The Internet of Things (IoT) continues to hold much financial promise in the development of communications over the next several years.

In a recent projection, IDC (News - Alert) says the worldwide IoT market will increase by more than $5 trillion over the next six years. As of last year, the worldwide IoT market was about $1.9 trillion, according to IDC, and it will likely reach $7.1 trillion by 2020.

As the market plays itself out, Apple and Google are competing for IoT “supremacy” when it comes to IoT technology, ZDNet reported. In addition, Gartner (News - Alert) predicted the global IoT tech market would total about $1.9 trillion by 2020 and will include as many as 26 billion individual devices, the report adds.

Yet, there is sometimes confusion over what exactly IoT is. To help explain it, Martin Bakal, product marketing manager at Flexera Software’s software licensing and entitlement management division, gave some description and examples.

He explains in a blog post that the IoT is “a group of devices that deliver a service by connecting with each other through a network.” To further understand the concept, he cited some examples. For instance, motorists will use GPS in their cars, and with the IoT GPS will communicate back with a computer. It uses a network to identify traffic jams, just as they happen. “This allows your GPS to re-route your car before ever getting stuck in the traffic jam,” Bakal said.

Other examples that can further explain IoT include those appliances which can monitor health-related items. Also, it applies to communications equipment, connected cars, medical devices and refrigerators. They each provide a service to a business or an individual.

There, of course, is also the issue of how to monetize the IoT. Gartner, in its analysis of the sector, said that licensing and entitlement management is a key to making money off of the IoT.

“Fortunately for Flexera Software that is exactly the solution that we provide to software vendors and intelligent device manufacturers,” Bakal said.