Viable Sensor Network Industrial Ecosystem

1
Viable Sensor Network Industrial Ecosystem
Role of Zigbee/TinyOS

• Technology Exchange 2005
• Jim Schoenduve
• Chipcon

2
Industrial Ecosystems?

• An industrial ecosystem is a community or network
  of companies and other organizations in a region
  who choose to interact by exchanging and making
  use of by-products and/or energy in a way that
  provides one or more of the following benefits
  over traditional, non-linked operations
• increased systemic energy efficiency leading to
  reduced systemic energy use,
• increase in the amount and types of process
  outputs that have market value. (Gertler 1995,
  as cited by Lowe et al. 1997)

3
Industrial Ecosystems Viewpoints

• Perscriptive or Descriptive?
• Prescriptive
• The way things oughtta be!
• Descriptive
• The way things are now.

4
Chipcons Unique Perspective
TinyOS vs. ZigbeeChipcon is agnostic!
TinyOS
Zigbee
Chipcon Defacto Radio
Chipcon has a broad view of industry efforts has
over 5000 customers doing chip level adaptation
of various Chipcon devices.
5
The Industrial Ecosystem

• Prescriptive (The way things ought to be)
• A self sustaining ecosystem is when there is a
  convergence in maturity of the following
• Markets
• An economic imperative exists to deploy solutions
• Capital
• Sufficient capital is available to fund
  development and deployment of solutions
• Technology
• Hardware and software maturity exists such that
  solutions can be deployed to serve an economic
  imperative
• Ideally, all three reach maturity simultaneously.

6
TinyOS Descriptive View(the way things are!)

• Markets
• Economic imperatives for deployment are being
  validated for small networks
• Huge sensor networks are not so prevalent as
  candidates for possible deployments
• Capital Funding
• Academic and Government Sources
• Internal Corporate Funding
• Venture Capital Funding
• Technology
• Hardware availability accelerating.
• Software infrastructure still in a very dynamic
  state of change

7
Zigbee Descriptive View(the way things are!)

• Markets for Zigbee
• Existence of a standard is causing exploration
  by Fortune 100 corporate interests.
• Those owning huge sensor networks are exploring
  Zigbee
• Capital
• Internal Corporate Funding
• Predominant Source of Funding
• Venture Capital Funding
• Too much to too few companies!
• Technology
• Hardware availability accelerating.
• Software infrastructure just emerging now

8
Threats to the Stability of the Industrial
Ecosystem for TinyOS/Zigbee

• Markets
• Overhype may threaten reputation of the
  community.
• Economic imperatives for deployment for large
  networks are still being assessed. (and have been
  abandoned by some already.)
• Capital
• Academic funding in jeopardy?
• Will the time horizons of software and hardware
  maturity match the time horizons of the VC
  community?

9
Threats to the Stability of the Industrial
Ecosystem for TinyOS/Zigbee

• Hardware maturity on track (little threat)
• Hardware adaptation from other markets supporting
  the Tiny/OS Zigbee effort
• The software systems are always the critical path
• Software development is still a multi-year effort
  for products designed for industrial product
  deployments.
• Will the standards tube sock be sufficient to
  drive adaptation of a common set of hardware and
  software or will it fragment?

10
What to watch?

• Market hype
• Lets match expectations to reality
• Venture funding
• Watch inflows and breadth of companies funded.
• Watch time horizon expectations
• Technology
• Consolidation or Fragmentation of Software?
• will the tube sock standard fit enough
  applications?