A friend was complaining to me that the barrier to application development was too low for his business. As the use of the cloud is making it easier for the enterprise to take advantage of mobility, it is becoming integrated with day-to-day operations.

In effect, the result is that custom application development can be accomplished in the enterprise directly. 

This friend has built some pretty strong systems in the past and has a good track record of delivering on time and on budget. What he does not have is a track record of being close enough to the customer to know what really impacts the bottom line.

Does this mean that skunk works or even sanctioned development that is internal is probably where most enterprises will develop their solutions?

I think this is dilemma for the carriers right now and why the platform vendors maybe in an ideal position. Virtualization and cloud computing is giving the ability to mashup application development to IT and the more the platform vendors provide that some ability the more likely the sale. 

At our M2M event we are going to have a variety of enterprises speaking and some of them have IT as critical asset and others have IT as almost an afterthought still.

However, when it comes to the development of solutions the common language will be in the cost savings.

M2M may one of the hottest areas of business right now simply for the fact that is the next step in virtualization of the enterprise. If you have the servers reduced the information (in this case from sensors) are the next logical place to impact. 

Mobile Virtualization should be a term we adopt when talking about M2M with IT. Companies have built solutions that make it possible to aggregate data from the factory floor, on the road, and around the world.

The bottom line is distance is no longer the limitation only the value in execution.

Want to learn more about M2M technologies? Then be sure to check out the M2M Evolution conference, collocated with TMC’s (News - Alert) ITEXPO West 2011, taking place Sept. 13-15, 2011, in Austin, Texas. The M2M Evolution Conference is for those industry professionals interested in capitalizing on a rapidly growing segment of the telecom industry. The M2M Evolution Conference embraces the any-to-any strategy of the Internet today. Co-sponsored by TMC Partner Crossfire Media, it showcases the solutions, and examines the data strategies and technological requirements that enterprises and carriers need to capitalize on a market segment that is estimated to grow to $300 Billion in the year ahead. To register, click here.