James Brehm, senior strategist and consultant for Compass (News - Alert) Intelligence, asked a very important question this morning to those who attended “Analyze This: M2M is Here and Now” at M2M Evolution at ITEXPO (News - Alert) West 2011.

“If M2M is a baseball game what inning are we in?” he asked.

One attendee shouted out the third inning while another exclaimed that M2M has yet to even hit the field.

What was Brehm’s take on it?

“I believe we are in spring training,” he said, which was met with laughs. “Why are we still in spring training? Because we have been talking about this for over 20 years.” 



This morning, Brehm was joined by executives from Frost & Sullivan (News - Alert), Ovum and TAPA who discussed to a standing-room only crowd the rise of M2M, where the industry is heading and challenges in the M2M space.

Vikrant Gandhi, senior industry analyst at Frost & Sullivan, kicked off the session by highlighting the fact that verticals ranging from transportation to telematics to finance to security have adopted M2M solutions and the analyst firm predicts M2M adoption will only continue to burgeon rapidly. Soon, all segments of supply chain will need to work hard to maximize the M2M opportunity, Gandhi said.

Brehm echoed that there are many reasons that companies are starting to employ M2M strategies, particularly because of its ability to save companies money and to help them roll out new services that will make them money. With regards to how big the market opportunity for M2M is, Brehm said that experts are predicting everything from trillions of connected devices to billions to limitless numbers.

“The value of the M2M marketplace is tremendous,” Brehm said, noting that there are currently 27 to 28 million connections in U.S. and that number is expected to grow to 78 million by 2015.

Despite the surge of M2M devices, there still exists confusion as to what exactly is M2M. According to Brehm, when Compass Intelligence asked 15 different companies to define M2M, every organization had a different definition. For Compass Intelligence, M2M is defined as anything that can be connected and will be connected to the Internet, whether it utilizes or doesn’t utilize the cloud and whether it relies on cellular, WiFi (News - Alert) or satellite.

As the definition for M2M gets solidified, other verticals are hopping aboard the M2M train. Specifically, operators have adopted this trend, according to Mike Sapien, principal analyst for Enterprise Practice at Ovum (News - Alert).

“Many telecom operators are seriously looking at M2M opportunity,” Sapien said. “What made it take off is when the operators approached it with a different attitude. They are looking at in terms of what value it can bring and they now realize that this is actually a huge opportunity but that they have to approach it differently and have partnerships to pull it off.”

To hear more about M2M Evolution, a collocated event designed for any company that is looking to utilize the wireless network to extend control over their supply chain, product development, and distribution channels, check back here.

The M2M Evolution Conference will be collocated with ITEXPO West, the world’s premier IP communications event, HAPPENING NOW at the Austin Convention Center in Austin, TX. M2M Evolution will include a series of analyst insight, case studies, and roundtable discussions and will show attendees how to exploit this technology to minimize destruction, fraud and theft across all vertical markets. Don’t wait. Register now.

Stay in touch with everything happening at ITEXPO… follow us on Twitter