Digital Perspectives Dinner: The Internet of Things

For our sixth Digital Perspectives dinner, Inflexion focused on the topic of the Internet of Things, and how it is likely to change everything around us.

The dinner saw guests from a range of high-performing tech businesses in the UK discuss how the IoT has the opportunity to change everything from waste disposal to cloud computing.

Jim Carroll, CTO of Mobica, the leading IoT software services specialist in which Inflexion made a Partner Capital investment last year, led the discussion over the commercial outlook of IoT. Jim gave a number of compelling insights based on his experience in delivering solutions for blue-chip clients in the semi-conductor, automotive and payment industries.

Responses to Jim were led by Shelley Hurley, representing Google Cloud Services, who highlighted that the consequence of connectivity will be the reliance on more powerful data computing and initiatives to automate many decision-making processes. Julien Snell from Cocom, an Intel innovation partner, noted that he is seeing a major transition in the type of clients requesting device-led design work – not just the usual semi-conductor.

With regard to the timing over this industrialisation of the internet, opinions were varied. The technology shift will touch almost everything from the development of communications networks to the shift of manufacturing businesses from being product delivery to service provision companies  – to that end, timescales are impossible to determine. The room did agree that the development of a ‘caring economy’ was evident, with the maturing of IoT-related businesses in the automotive, healthcare and insurance verticals, and that the next few years will be full of opportunity to service the transition for more business clients.