An excellent overview of some of the key topics that are top-of-mind for industry executives in both power utilities and oil and gas. Written by Maciej Kranz, Vice President, Corporate Technology Group, the blog covers many of the 'essentials' that are going to make the difference between success or failure for many companies in the future:

• Business Relevance-how important is Line-of-Business (LoB)? What is Cisco doing to address the new buying centers?
• IT/OT Convergence-IT techniques are increasingly used for OT (Operational Technologies). OT has critical needs that IT must take notice of. Is a coming together happening?
• Open Standards-Cisco leads the charge here, but proprietary and legacy protocols still endure. How is the industry adapting?
• Cross-industry Use Cases-All industries are different, or are they? Maciej talks about commonalities and the inefficiencies of learning from different industries.

Maciej talks about the number of connected "things" in the world that has skyrocketed from about a million in the early 1990s to 13 billion today.  He adds that...

"As the Internet of Everything (IoE) gains momentum-digitizing business processes in every industry-we expect to see 50 billion connected devices by 2020. The technology connecting all these devices has become affordable and easy to integrate. But that is not the primary reason for this explosion in connected devices. I believe we are entering a "golden age" of digitization because of the confluence of the following factors".

I know John Chambers and others are talking about there being 500bn devices connected by 2030, so the challenges and opportunities will grow exponentially.

It is those four elements mentioned above, combined with the "network effect," which multiplies the value of connections as their number grows,which are are driving the rush to connect everything, Maciej concludes. At Cisco, we have thousands of customers who have already adopted IoT solutions-and every day there are more who see the evidence in their own businesses and industries that the time is now for IoT, he adds.

Read his blog hear to find out his views on the four critical elements here: The Internet of Things: Why Now?

...and let me know what you think!