Today, I am at Axeda Connection 2011, where I have interviewed many of the executives of Axeda (News - Alert). The recurring theme here has been, “connect, manage and innovate,” however, the line has not been the most impressive discussion.

The discussions have not been about Axeda, but rather the customers. The Axeda platform is not the story; it is the enabler of the story.

Connect: Want to talk about the platform; the discussion quickly turns to the reference design for medical applications. The discussion turns to companies that used the platform for hospital and home medical applications.

Manage: Want to talk about the platform; the discussion turns to digital signs that are used by municipalities for directions and speed limit changes that include video feedback to dispatch.

Innovate: Want to talk about platform; let’s discuss an ice cream vending machine that is like a mechanized cold spring and connects to a social network that shares the trends and has its own Twitter account.

If the company’s strongest assets are the people, Dale Calder (News - Alert) has done a great job assembling the team to make the machine work. This now includes Jack Sweeney who has joined as the CEO.

Jack Sweeney and I had a talk about our mutual history when network integration was young and the market was ripe for best practices. Under his watch, I got to see a company transform itself from a telecom outsourcer to a data integrator. The transformation went beyond a base level of data management and included best practices.

Best practices are the next phase for M2M and that has been the focus here at the event. However we have a long way to go since for most companies we are still at the connect phase. 

Best practices at the management level can mean efficiency in savings truck rolls and increasing span and control. But best practices at the innovation level means something different, since one aspect of innovative best practices that is required is for information to be available to more resources within the organization.

Interestingly enough, it’s been the subject of other discussions about the next generation of wireless in general. We are at a phase of managing the network that requires much more awareness of the applications. The RF folks, the IP folks and the applications folks need to see a comprehensive view. 

As Jack Sweeney said when he came on board we, “have just scratched the surface…of the next wave of opportunity.”