What Can You See at an Internet of Things Exhibition?

​The typical trade show, whether here in Asia or over in Europe or the US,  has likely been running for a number of years. So you pretty much know what to expect. Even if a new event does appear on the calendar, it's usually related to an established industry – food & beverage, oil & gas, pharmaceuticals, etc., so again, you have a fairly good idea of what kind of companies will be there and the technology and equipment on display.

But what about IoT? What and who can you expect to see if you sign up for an Internet of Things exhibition? Although much of the constituent technology has been around for some time, IoT as an accepted and game-changing concept is new and so has only very recently triggered the interest of exhibition organizers. In Singapore, for example, IoT Asia just had its second edition this April, and in October comes a brand new event (from another organizer) called The IOT Show. Both have a similar model – paid conference and free exhibition. 

As goes the common refrain, no single company can provide an entire IoT solution, and together with the fact that IoT is relevant to multiple industries and extends to areas such as smart cities, urban mobility and home automation, an IoT exhibition likely contains a breadth of technology and quite disparate companies and applications. Some will be highly relevant to you, others less so or not at all.  

Players & Positions

Accordingly, attending the IoT Asia event in Singapore last month got me thinking about the composition of the 45 exhibitors. Where do they fall within the IoT ecosystem? Concentrated at the device level or up there in the cloud? How many with something genuinely new and "IoT" to offer versus how many riding the hype and repackaging existing technology? How many from Asia and how many not?

Using the broad categorization of Devices (sensors, local storage, controllers, etc.); Connectivity (network components, communication services, etc.); Software (platforms, analytics, applications, etc.), and taking out Others (academia, industry associations, media) reveals the following exhibitor participation split:

Devices – 30%

Connectivity – 30%

Software – 40%

That's a pretty even share, although a closer look at the constituent companies does reveal a geographic split, with the Devices category dominated by Asian companies, and Software largely the preserve of companies outside of the region. Asian companies have traditionally been strong in hardware such as embedded systems, but less so in software platforms and applications.

As for what was genuinely pure-play IoT on display, those exhibitors that had developed new businesses with IoT at the core seemed to be in the minority – Altiux Innovations. Bosch Software Innovations, ThingWorx (PTC), TZ Limited come to mind. For some others, it was perhaps more of  an "old wine in a new bottle" opportunity.  And for a small number, you have to say, a rather tenuous connection of the offering to IoT.

This observation should not be taken as a criticism or be too surprising when you consider that the concept of an IoT exhibition is something very new. And particularly with all the attention over the last two years, you cannot fault companies for wanting to make an association to IoT and make a grab for some reflected glory.

Reality & Perspective

So although exhibitor numbers are not yet going to be in the thousands or even the hundreds, you can see a lot at an IoT show. If you've been reading about the Internet of Things or attending seminars and conferences, actually seeing some of the technology up close helps to add some reality and perspective to a sometimes esoteric narrative. And if you already have an application in mind, seeing and comparing the various offerings and making vendor contacts is of course highly useful.

For visitors to such events, it's helpful to quickly assess and mentally categorize (into the IoT ecosystem) the exhibitors as you walk round. Because, as at IoT Asia, you're likely in rapid succession to come across a data analytics company, a telecoms company, an embedded computing company, a cloud services company, a specialist IoT platform company, among others. And further, some may be restricted to a certain niches such as connected healthcare, which is of limited interest if you're from an oil & gas company, for example.

Looking ahead, it will be interesting to see how IoT exhibitions evolve over the next five years. Perhaps more targeted events, such as an Industrial IoT show, to allow concentration on more specific markets? Or as the technology becomes familiar and applications pervasive, will the very concept of a show for the Internet of Things still be valid? It's early days yet, so let's see.