Enterprise software, say hello to the Internet of Things

Frank Scavo pointed out recently “You really like to write about sensors”

He is so right. On the New Florence blog, the category with one of the most posts over the last 8 years is the one on Telemetry (Sensors, RFID, GPS). In The New Polymath, I wrote quite a bit about BP’s “sensory networks” it has been pioneering in its refineries, tankers and elsewhere as far back as 2004. Other books have described the GE Industrial Internet and other such networks in other industries.

I have been a bit surprised enterprise software, especially ERP vendors, have not done much to help companies better capture and analyze the growing mountain of sensory data.

I am looking forward to hearing at Dreamforce about Salesforce1 its framework for the IoT among other things. With the “quantified self” manifesting itself through so many consumer devices you can see how Salesforce is positioning the CRM angle.

But there is a far bigger industrial angle, that companies like GE with sensors in its wind turbines, aircraft engines, MRI scanners are leveraging. There is still a huge opportunity for other enterprise software vendors to generalize access to the Industrial IoT.