This disruption is possible due to the rise of the cloud, and the arrival of the always-on customer, who has been emboldened by the ability to get the information and products they want when they want them with just a few clicks, and the expectation that services and solutions should be personalized to their needs.

The IoT Evolution Expo is going like gangbusters here in Fort Lauderdale this week, and one of the highlights of Tuesday's events was the keynote by John Oberon, VP, IoT Software Platforms, Cisco.

The market is, over time, converging to provide visual experience. Technology is not just offering the freedom to work when and where we choose. And it is not just technology transforming the way we work. ITEXPO's first keynote today on visual collaboration, from Polycom's Ashan Willy broke down the workplace into three categories to illustrate this change: Who, What and How.

Digital transformation has become the catchphrase for everything a business needs to do to leverage technology to be more competitive, cost-efficient, and customer friendly. But doing all that can involve a whole lot of different technologies and suppliers. To help businesses more easily understand, access, and choose from the sea of technology suppliers, and enable those suppliers to connect with businesses that are the best targets for their solutions, there's TechnologyAdvice.

The company saw a 17 percent increase in revenue year over year, as reported in March, noted Yorktel's Vishal Brown. Business in the EMEA region, he said, spiked 50 percent from 2013 to 2014, and Yorktel's 2015 numbers will be out shortly. And the fact that Yorktel achieved 2701 certification, he added, was good for the company's play in the telehealth arena.

When it comes to security problems, the hits just keep coming. The vulnerabilities will only multiply as the Internet of Things expands. That's why Erik Knight of SimpleWAN is sounding the alarm.

The cloud offers great promise for businesses to save big on capital expenses and ongoing maintenance and management, while providing them with the latest and greatest feature functionality. But embracing the cloud entails a whole new mindset and posture, and it can be a challenge for small and medium businesses to navigate this new world and all the suppliers that exist within it. CloudRoute was established to simplify that process, David Byrd, the company's CMO and executive vice president of sales, explained in an interview today at ITEXPO.

IT team members used to consider managed services as a threat to their jobs, but that's not longer the case. Given that the responsibilities of IT staffs have expanded so widely in recent years due to the rise of DevOps and the call for digital transformation, these individuals now see communications solutions offered on an as-a-service basis as a boon rather than something to be avoided.

The solution is offered to developers for free. Manufacturers of such hardware as motors and relays, and companies like Acer and Semtech that "want something super custom," also use the myDevices IoT platform, said Bromber.

You may know Altaworx as a cloud PBX company that also resells IP connectivity. But did you also know that Altaworx now offers services to connect IoT implementations?

You may not have heard of developerprogram.com, but you've probably heard of Avaya, Cisco, Harman Kardon, Sprint, Vodafone, and many of the other customers for which the company supports developer and other partner programs.

Droplit.io aims to leverage its cloud platform to enable connected device solutions providers to extend those devices so they can appear on every screen and work with every other device a consumer might have, he added. By every screen he's talking about extending control of smart devices to big screen TVs, computers, set-top boxes, smartphones, and tablets. That can make for a smart connected home, and a more seamless and connected existence.

Ingenu CEO John Horn is at ITEXPO and IoT Evolution Expo this week offering an update on the company's progress in offering an alternative to cellular, LoRa, and SIGFOX IoT connectivity options.

Device Authority started out providing security solutions for more general enterprise applications. The company in the fourth quarter released an IoT-specific security solution. And it's now in 10 active product evaluations for that solution.

MKN Group is a distributor of IP gear and a VoIP service provider to small and medium businesses in the U.S. and Canada. It's U.S. brand is called It's VoIP Time, and co-founder and CEO Bashar Masad says the time for VoIP has indeed arrived.

Making a play for the brass ring in the US market is China-based Yeastar, and at ITEXPO, the Yeastar team spent some time with TMC to tell us how.

Voxbone, an industry leader in the provision of telephony solutions, sat down with TMC to talk shop as a precursor to this week's ITEXPO.

Verizon's ThingSpace platform is the connectivity company's all-in partner-friendly IoT domination play-and it's going well.