Internet of Things

By now you probably have heard about the “Internet of Things” and its potential to change how we live, play and work.  Granted, it has become the most hyped buzz word replacing the Smart Grid and Big Data in my view. It’s kind of like vampires being out and zombies being in when it comes to TV shows and movies. My wife loves these new zombie shows for some reason totally unknown to me!

But unlike vampires and zombies, I can assure you that the Internet of Things (IoT) is real and we have written before about the work we are doing around the Internet of Things (IoT) here at Microsoft with examples such as: Delivering on the promise of the Internet of Things, Learn How the Internet of Things can deliver business value to Power & Utility Companies, Itron looks to the cloud for analytics and Accelerate Your Insights.

IoT is one of the most frequent questions I get from partners and customers as they are all looking for use cases and real life examples of how IoT is making an impact in real life.  I think one of the best examples that I have seen comes from ThyssenKrupp Elevator. As one of the world’s leading elevator manufacturers, ThyssenKrupp Elevator maintains more than 1.1 million elevators worldwide, including those in the new 102-story One World Trade Center in New York – the fastest in the western hemisphere. ThyssenKrupp teamed up with Microsoft and CGI to create ‘smart’ elevators. Using the Internet of Things (IoT), the solution securely connects thousands of sensors in ThyssenKrupp’s elevators that monitor cab speed, door functioning, shaft alignment, motor temperature and much more to the cloud, using the Microsoft Azure Intelligent Systems Service (Azure ISS). The system pulls all this data into a single integrated real-time dashboard of key performance indicators. These “smart” elevators are actually teaching technicians how to fix them, thanks to Microsoft Azure Machine Learning. It’s an amazing story and the scenario is applicable to many other industries including Power & Utilities. I strongly suggest that you view the case study video here and think about how the ThyssenKrupp scenario can be applied to your business.

Also, if you want to keep up with Microsoft’s work on IoT I would follow our official Internet of Things (IoT) blog as this is the place to discover how businesses are unleashing the potential of IoT by harnessing Microsoft’s cloud services, business intelligence and data analytics tools, and operating systems. May the Cloud be with You! – Jon C. Arnold