Companies get into IoT for multiple reasons. In the case of Arrow, the Internet of Things (IoT) was thrust upon it. Now, however, Arrow Electronics is trailblazing into IoT platform services.

Last year, Arrow did nearly $24 billion in revenue that was largely split between two businesses: electronic components and enterprise computing solutions. Historically, these two divisions had little overlap, but IoT has bridged the two units.

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A similar story is occurring at organizations everywhere as IoT converts disconnected things into computing peripherals. For example, hospital refrigerators that store blood and medicine are increasingly integrated into intelligent building management and communications systems.

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Everything about the modern doctor’s office feels primitive. It’s one of the few businesses that requires I use my telephone for scheduling — unless it’s about lab results. For that, they prefer fax. Even the doctor’s tools, such as the blood pressure cuff, scale and stethoscope, are largely the same as the equipment used in my childhood.

I get that the industry needs to be cautious regarding change and that legal requirements further complicate matters, but changes are overdue. Because medical professionals are unlikely to adopt unproven tech, the evolution will most likely come from existing tech being used in other applications.

Let’s take a look at how things might change in healthcare technology:

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Property and ownership are among the most basic concepts of a modern society. Our ability to clarify who owns what separates us from savages because property and ownership help us maintain our independence and identity.

The rules of property and ownership have evolved over centuries. There are clear transfer procedures for all types of property, including real estate, cars and even books. The problem is these age-old concepts are not holding up in our connected and digital world.

Cambridge University Press

“Property ownership as we know it is under attack and fading fast,” writes Joshua Fairfield in his book Owned: Property, Privacy, and the New Digital Serfdom. “The Internet of Things and digital property ownership systems are being built on the old feudal model.”

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Next month, Microsoft will hold its Ignite and Envision conferences in Orlando, Florida. Ignite is aimed at enterprise IT professionals, and Envision is aimed at IT decision makers. 

Combining Ignite and Envision in the same venue increases the overall enterprise IT audience, so expect several enterprise-related announcements. The action will be in the cloud, as Microsoft has become cloud obsessed. Last month’s quarterly results put Microsoft as the second largest cloud company behind Amazon Web Services (AWS) — and growing faster.

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Connecting the world changes everything. That’s what businesses and consumers are learning as they embrace the Internet of Things (IoT) for everything from household garage door openers to smart-city applications that solve traffic congestion and reduce crime.

But IoT is more significant than just adding connectivity to existing products or services. In fact, it is about changing the way products and services deliver value. In the process, products are becoming services, and services are becoming more intelligent.

+ Also on Network World: IoT devices or humans?

The hospitality industry is not immune to this evolution, and, in fact, it is well positioned to benefit from IoT. That’s because the industry is poised to improve the customer experience while simultaneously reducing costs.

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I like Gartner’s concept of the technology hype cycle. It assumes that expectations of new technologies quickly ramp to an inflated peak, drop into a trough of disillusionment, then gradually ascend a slope of enlightenment until they plateau. Of course, not all technologies complete the cycle or transition through the stages at the same pace.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has arguably been in the trough for 60 years. I am thinking of Kubrick’s HAL and Roddenberry’s “computer” that naturally interact with humans. That’s a long trough, and despite popular opinion, the end is nowhere in sight.

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There’s so much excitement and specialized research taking place that AI has fragmented into several camps such as heuristic programming for game-playing AI, natural language processing for conversational AI, and machine learning for statistical problems. The hype is building again, and just about every major tech company and countless startups are racing toward another inflated peak and subsequent trough.

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A Swedish rail line can now collect fares by scanning its customers for embedded biometric chips. The primary benefit is the elimination of a physical ticket—plus it’s harder to lose. It sounds futuristic, but my dogs have been sporting embedded chips for over a decade.

If you think about it, physical tickets are kind of silly. They are a surrogate for the person. The practice of scanning a ticket instead of a person was likely established when there just weren’t many viable alternatives. Technology now offers a more direct approach.

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The Tour de France pro cycling race is one of the oldest and most prestigious annual sporting events in the world. Each year about 200 cyclists compete during most of July in a race that crosses some 2,200 miles of varied terrain in France.

The first Tour de France was in 1903. Back then it attracted mostly local competitors and spectators. Coverage and prestige of the event expanded with each consecutive era of newspapers, radio, and television. However, we now live in the digital era. Fans don’t want to just watch a sport; they want to engage with it, and they expect more control and interaction.

Professional sports are increasingly embracing digital technology to enhance the fan experience. This includes data-enhanced viewing, live streaming, video on demand, second-screen apps, gamification, and social media interaction. This technology is becoming a critical component of sports marketing necessary to attract fans, athletes, sponsors, and broadcasters.

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I want to work in an energy-efficient smart building. It would have advanced energy systems that would ensure no watt gets wasted. It would have lighting, like my fridge, that would magically turn off when unneeded, and doors that would reliably swish open Star Trek-style when and only when appropriate.

Unfortunately, most buildings aren’t like that today. The majority of commercial buildings are relatively barbaric with primitive infrastructure oblivious to its purpose or costs. Far too often, building managers lack basic visibility into the infrastructure they are responsible for.

+ Also on Network World: How IoT with bio-mimicry reduces indoor air pollution +

However, times have changed, and today it’s appropriate to be green, although the interpretation of “green” ranges from environmental to financial motivations. Of course, a building with smart infrastructure might not always be viable. Renters wouldn’t want to pay for the upgrades. And, as long as infrastructure is otherwise working, it might not be green at all to replace it. A better option could be to focus on visibility.

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