In his session at @ThingsExpo, Dr. Robert Cohen, an economist and senior fellow at the Economic Strategy Institute, presented the findings of a series of six detailed case studies of how large corporations are implementing IoT. The session explored how IoT has improved their economic performance, had major impacts on business models and resulted in impressive ROIs. The companies covered span manufacturing and services firms. He also explored servicification, how manufacturing firms shift from selling a product to offering it as a service and discussed methods you can employ to estimate how inv...

Like me, I’m sure that many of you nerds have read the book “I, Robot.” “I, Robot” is the seminal book written by Isaac Asimov (actually it was a series of books, but I only read the one) that explores the moral and ethical challenges posed by a world dominated by robots. But I read that book like 50 years ago, so the movie “I, Robot” with Will Smith is actually more relevant to me today. The movie does a nice job of discussing the ethical and moral challenges associated with a society where robots play such a dominant and crucial role in everyday life.

I recently had the opportunity to give a 10-minute keynote at DataWorks Summit 2017. I know what most of you are thinking: Schmarzo can barely introduce himself in 10 minutes! What sort of keynote could he give in just 10 minutes? And to be honest, I too struggled with what to say. But after some brainstorming with my marketing experts (Jeff Abbott, Erin Banks, and Chris Hill), we came up with an idea: Pose 5 questions that every organization needs to consider as they prepare themselves for digital transformation. And while I didn’t have enough time in 10 minutes to answer those questions...

“You can’t stop the incessant march of economics” – Bill Schmarzo Okay, so it’s probably not cool to quote oneself, but hey, this is my blog and I get to do what I want. And for anyone who follows me knows, I love to “riff” on the game-changing power of economics. The “economics of big data” – where the cost to store, manage and analyze data is 20x to 100x cheaper than traditional analytics – started this big data and data science craze. But ultimately it is the economics of value, or to be specific, “value in use” where the economics really become a game changer....

No hype cycles or predictions of a gazillion things here. IoT is here. You get it. You know your business and have great ideas for a business transformation strategy. What comes next? Time to make it happen. In his session at @ThingsExpo, Jay Mason, an Associate Partner of Analytics, IoT & Cybersecurity at M&S; Consulting, will present a step-by-step plan to develop your technology implementation strategy. He will discuss the evaluation of communication standards and IoT messaging protocols, data analytics considerations, edge-to-cloud technical architecture, IoT platform selection, end-to-end...

SYS-CON Events announced today that DXWorldExpo has been named “Global Sponsor” of SYS-CON's 21st International Cloud Expo, which will take place on Oct 31 – Nov 2, 2017, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA. Digital Transformation is the key issue driving the global enterprise IT business. Digital Transformation is most prominent among Global 2000 enterprises and government institutions.

My discussions with organizations looking to “digitally transform” themselves is yielding some interesting observations. I expect that when these discussions move into the execution phase, we will start to create some “Laws of Digital Transformation” that will guide organizations digital transformation journey. So with that in mind, let me start by proposing these “4 Laws of Digital Transformation.”

With 2017 crossing the half way point, let’s look at some technology trends thus far. Breaches: Many personal records are half empty due to the continued rash of intrusions while the crooks are half full of our personal information along with some ransom payments. According to the Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC), there have been 7,689 breaches since 2005 (when they started tracking) compromising – get this – 900,315,392 records. Almost 3 times the U.S. population. In 2016, 56% of all Data Breaches began with a user clicking on a phishing email. The big story for 2017 I think, is the ris...

The concept of speed as an advantage is not new. Over the course of 700 years, the Romans built and maintained a system of roads extending over 55,000 miles to enable speedy communications and the quick movement of troops across the vast expanse of the empire. What’s different today is that digital technologies have warped our perception of time. As an example, a person might say they live five minutes from town, but that can have widely different meanings based on whether they were referring to walking or driving a car. Digital technologies compress our perception of time and space while ex...

SYS-CON Events announced today that JETRO will showcase Japan Digital Transformation Pavilion at SYS-CON's 21st International Cloud Expo®, which will take place on Oct 31 - Nov 2, 2017, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA. The Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) is a non-profit organization that provides business support services to companies expanding to Japan. With the support of JETRO's dedicated staff, clients can incorporate their business; receive visa, immigration, and HR support; find dedicated office space; identify local government subsidies; get tailored ma...

With the wave of personal assistants, such as Siri, Cortana and Google Assistant, and new startups leveraging AI and analytics to build personal companions, it’s becoming clear we are moving toward a new voice-controlled relationship with technology. As we have already seen in the consumer market, it is all but a given that these voice-activation systems will eventually make it into the enterprise environment, as the potential benefits of these systems could be tremendous in simplifying and automating activities. Although it may be a long time before we see the full likenesses of “HAL” from “2...

Throughout history military leaders have suffered through the "fog of war," where they desperately sought answers to six key questions: Where are my enemies? Where are my friends? Where are my forces? Where are my materials and supplies? What capabilities are available now and at what location? What are the environmental conditions?

The human work of solving problems, facing challenges and overcoming obstacles tends to share a common goal: creating stable, secure and predictable environments. The tendency for most humans is that once we solve a challenge, we want to be done with it. That propensity, however, does not fit with today’s reality of perpetual change. In the digital business world, organizations have no choice but to operate in an unclear, uncertain and continuously shifting environment that requires a new mindset and approach to formulating business strategies. Digital winners recognize that change is pa...

Water stress is not an arcane term just used by hydrologists. It is defined as the inability to meet the ‘human and ecological demand for water.’ The effective use of water resources has been well documented as a leading indicator of economic progress and the converse, damages to water resources can significantly impact economic growth. Here in the US, recent high-profile stories about poisoned water in Flint, Mich. and polluted water in Toledo, Ohio, have raised this issue for many who likely hadn’t thought much about our national water supplies before. Alarmingly, as many as 3.5 million ...

SYS-CON Events announced today that JETRO will showcase Japan Digital Transformation Pavilion at SYS-CON's 21st International Cloud Expo®, which will take place on Oct 31 - Nov 2, 2017, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA. The Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) is a non-profit organization that provides business support services to companies expanding to Japan. With the support of JETRO's dedicated staff, clients can incorporate their business; receive visa, immigration, and HR support; find dedicated office space; identify local government subsidies; get tailored ma...

How do cars talk to each other today? One driver can honk at another. It's pretty crude. That is quickly changing though - and, for the most part, that's a good thing. Cars are becoming complex computers, expected to drive autonomously, download software updates regularly, and impress riders with the sound quality and entertainment value of a home theater. Soon, cars will be communicating with each other to do everything from switching lanes to balancing traffic congestion. When you combine machine-learning, complex data, and growing automotive networks, you get a dramatically different indust...

In 2016, artificial intelligence (AI) reached its climax. Research and advisory firm Tractica predicted that the annual worldwide AI revenue will grow from $643.7 million in 2016 to $38.8 billion by 2025. The revenue for enterprise AI applications will increase from $358 million in 2016 to $31.2 billion by 2025, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 64.3%. Thus, IT and business decision makers must face up to the potentials of AI already today. For each kind of organization this leads to the question, which type of technologies or infrastructure they can leverage to operate an A...

Any significant business process that can be documented and best practices identified - will be. Any defined process that can be standardized - will be. Standardized processes that can be codified and automated (through robotic software automation), will be - if the volume justifies it. If the process is repeatable across many companies it will be offered as a shared service on a platform in a cloud.

API Security has finally entered our security zeitgeist. OWASP Top 10 2017 - RC1 recognized API Security as a first class citizen by adding it as number 10, or A-10 on its list of web application vulnerabilities. We believe this is just the start. The attack surface area offered by API is orders or magnitude larger than any other attack surface area. Consider the fact the APIs expose cloud services, internal databases, application and even legacy mainframes over the internet. What could go wrong?

Internet-of-Things discussions can end up either going down the consumer gadget rabbit hole or focused on the sort of data logging that industrial manufacturers have been doing forever. However, in fact, companies today are already using IoT data both to optimize their operational technology and to improve the experience of customer interactions in novel ways. In his session at @ThingsExpo, Gordon Haff, Red Hat Technology Evangelist, shared examples from a wide range of industries – including energy, transportation, and retail – of using IoT to create new business opportunities and improve eff...