Reply to XX Securities newspaper on several questions about the internet of things operating system

XX Securities newspaper asked a few questions about the internet of things and the Internet of Things (IoT) operating systems, individuals expressed some humble views, published here, and exchanges and discussions with industry friends.

What is the most needed solution for the IoT industry?

Although the industry of the Internet of things has been fired relatively hot, there has not been a widely recognized success story yet, and a widely recognized model, including business models and technology models, has not been developed. Personally, the cause of this state is the lack of standards. Here the standard, not refers to a specific technical standards, such as Bluetooth and ZigBee technology standards, is not a rigid national standards, but some kind of flexible, to maximize the future needs, can be widely used in the various scenarios of the Internet of things, at the same time can be a variety of scenes organically combined together, Something that forms a grand system. Specifically what this is, at present, no one can say clearly, otherwise there is no shortage.

In order to illustrate this problem more vividly, we can give some examples. such as personal computers, the reason for the rapid development in decades, the final brewing of the information technology revolution, the most fundamental factor is that it has a standard architecture, that is, IBM compatible machine architecture. Since the architecture is standard, it means that mass production can be produced, and many PC manufacturers emerge, providing the material foundation for the information revolution. At the same time, the architecture is standard, then parasitic in the above software, is also same strain, can be continuously iterative and perfect, reached a very high height. Imagine, if the hardware architecture of the personal computer has been changing, then Microsoft may have been busy to adapt to a variety of different hardware, it is now estimated to stay in the DOS phase, there is no time to develop and upgrade the Windows operating system, even long been dragged down.

Another example is the mobile Internet's Android operating system. Before Android came out, including chips and integrated circuits, displays, and so on, the actual level is not very different, the mobile network architecture is very stable and scientific, and there is no essential difference, but it is not the formation of today's mobile internet wave. The reason is that there is no set of standards to follow. There are many companies, based on the Linux kernel has developed the performance and beauty of the Android mobile phone operating system, but can not be large-scale promotion, because it is based on the development of the application is not portable, only on the development of the fixed mobile phone model, and the lack of a means of application distribution, This makes it impossible to form a polymerization effect. However, Android has successfully solved these problems through the platform independence and application market of the Java language. To be blunt, Android provides a set of standards that drive the development of the mobile Internet.

The current area of the Internet of things is the lack of similar standards. Such standards are unpredictable and therefore cannot be predetermined and can only be discovered and explored through practice. Personally, the Internet of Things (IoT) OS is a great way to explore. If you can form a set of patterns at the operating system level, you will inevitably detonate the IoT revolution.

What is the competitive point of the internet of things market?

I personally believe that, after the IoT industry matures, the core competition point is still service. As the industry matures, the hardware that makes up the internet of things will be highly standardized, just like the current PC. The underlying software that supports the Internet of Things will be open source. Therefore, the Internet of things hardware and software market, there will not be too high barriers to entry, will be completely competitive market, its profit level is very thin, which is determined by the market law.

Truly competitive, it is built on standard Internet of things hardware and software services. For example, for smart medical care, installed in the user's home or carry a variety of medical devices and terminals, are very standard. But there are many providers of medical services, these service providers from the medical terminal to collect data for analysis, to provide users with reasonable health advice, for potential patients, will promptly contact the appropriate medical resources for early intervention. It can be seen, which service providers can provide better medical advice, can find the hidden trouble earlier, can gather better medical resources to deal with the hidden trouble, which service provider can win. Competition is the service, as well as supporting the entire resource system of services.

But before reaching this mature state, the most pressing task at the moment is to explore a set of standards for the internet of things as soon as possible to provide the soil for the growth of the internet of things.

ARM also launched the operating system, why not be optimistic?

I am not personally optimistic about ARM's mbed, as this is not the core strategic direction of arm. ARM's core strategic direction is the chip, its launch mbed purpose, is in order to better sell its chips. The underlying idea is that in the Internet of things, the chip is still the center, the operating system is only a supporting role, is for the chip service. This clearly deviates from the core purpose of the Internet of things.

Personal point of view is that the internet of things industry, service is the core, whether it is hardware or software, or the Internet of Things platform, are for users to serve the user-centric, are to pursue the user's experience and value. In this concept, the operating system should be around the user needs to develop, focus on user value to develop, and the user's needs or user value is at any time change, so the IoT operating system development Organization should be dedicated to the investment, the heart no distractions, firmly grasp the needs of users, and in the fastest time to achieve user needs.

Therefore, the direction of the opposite, and can not go all out, not be optimistic is normal. However, the chip capability of ARM has always been respected by the industry. Standing on a developer's point of view, the ardent hope for arm is to focus on the areas of superiority, force out a hole, and do the chip well to provide the best control center for the internet of things.

What are the possible business models based on the IoT operating system?

I don't think the IoT operating system itself can make money, instead, the IoT operating system should be completely free and fully open source. For the system software, the individual has always held the view that the more basic software, the more it should open source. This pattern is also found throughout the open source industry. The first Linux operating system open source, gradually developed into a database open source, such as MySQL, and then developed into middleware open source, such as various types of SOA platform. In the traditional software field, because the software system is very complex, and the hardware equipment is very standard, in these two premise, there are many based on open source software to provide technical services companies, can also be very good to survive, such as Redhat.

But in the era of the internet of things, I personally don't care about the mode of service delivery based on open source software. The operating system of the Internet of things can be very complex, but the hardware that runs it is very fragmented, as small as a few K-memory sensors, to a complex hardware platform that can rival personal computers, such as a home gateway. In such a situation, it is difficult for enterprises to form enough experience and accumulation to support software services, because you are facing too many target hardware. Unlike the traditional enterprise market, Intel, all Cisco, is IBM.

But it does not mean that the Internet of things operating system does not have a business model, on the contrary, relying on the internet of things operating system, can derive huge business opportunities. For example, referring to Android mode, the operating system itself is free open source, but the default built-in support for Google search services and Gmail services, this will create a huge entrance to their core business to create a huge differentiation advantage. For example, traditional hardware manufacturers can rely on the open source of the Internet of things operating system, to embed their own hardware drivers, as long as users use the Internet of things operating system, then you can achieve their own proprietary hardware "Plug and Play", which can greatly improve the hardware sales share.

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The above represents only personal views, not necessarily correct, welcome industry peer guidance and discussion. Welcome to join QQ Group discussion: 38467832

Reply to XX Securities newspaper on several questions about the internet of things operating system