The Internet of Things: We've got it covered
Up until 2012, the undisputed hottest topic in IT for several years in a row had been cloud computing. Then, big data stepped in and arguably stole the crown last year. For 2013, there's likely to be a new top dog: The Internet of Things.
Also known as IoT or machine-to-machine (M2M), The Internet of Things is all about sensors that can connect lots of formerly-mundane objects to the Internet and automatically send their data to IT systems for analysis. The objects can be everything from health care monitors to traffic lights to thermostats to trains.
READ THIS: M2M and the Internet of Things: A guide
To help you get up to speed on what M2M is, why it's important, and how it can potentially help your organization, TechRepublic and ZDNet have made M2M our global topic of the month for January across both sites. We've also drawn on expertise from the four regions where we have teams of journalists: the US, Europe, Australia, and Asia.
We've kicked it off with a series of articles that are highly practical and take you on a deep dive of the topic. Some of what you'll find in the series includes:
- A technology primer
- A look at the business benefits
- An executive's guide
- A research survey on what your peers are doing and planning for M2M
- A look at the security implications
- Multiple case studies
- Vendor directories (for US, EMEA, Asia, and Australia)
A lot of today's technology journalism has become hyper, unstructured, ephemeral, and ranting. (And we're pointing the finger at ourselves as well). However, you can look at this joint ZDNet-TechRepublic series as our counter-point to that. We're going to serve the business technology audience by delivering a package of content that is much more actionable, resourceful, and grounded in the real world.
READ THIS: The business benefits of machine to machine
The good news is that we're not just doing this one series. We are going to do one of these deep dives every month in 2013 and we're going hit the hottest topics in business technology. Each month will have a topic of the month and our global team of over 35 journalists will be dedicating an important chunk of their time to making sure we do it right.
We've also put a lot of thought into packaging all of this content in ways that make it easy for you to find and read on multiple screens and devices. So, there are two main options. We've created what we call a "Special Feature" page on ZDNet that displays the articles, and this page adapts automatically to different screen sizes, including tablets and smartphones. On TechRepublic, we are putting together a PDF ebook that compiles the core articles on the ZDNet page as well as a few extra stories that will help you go even deeper on the topic. The ebook is free to registered TechRepublic and ZDNet members.
Here are links to these two for The Internet of Things topic, as well as quick previews of both down below.
- ZDNet: Tapping M2M: The Internet of Things
- TechRepublic: The Executive's Guide to the Internet of Things