SAP study: Brazil, China, Germany and India 'most ready' for M2M tech

Smarter cities could be one of the biggest (and best) results of the advancement of machine-to-machine (M2M) technology, based on a new report from SAP.

According to the report, nearly a third of respondents from IT departments in each of the six markets included in the study replied that smart cities would be the "coolest possible outcome" of M2M.

However, it might take awhile for these dreams to be realized — not just because we have to wait for more M2M solutions to be developed and deployed, but also because only 38 percent of survey participants were able to correctly define the M2M acronym itself.

For those who do at least know what M2M stands for, it might also take some convincing that it's not just an overused buzz term in the same vein as big data or cloud computing.

For example, SAP's report revealed that IT decision makers in the United States and the United Kingdom were more likely to believe that discussions around M2M are simply hype, making them less excited than global counterparts.

But that laissez-faire attitude toward M2M could open some doors for competing markets and businesses.

SAP argued that Brazil, China, Germany and India are actually the four countries that are most ready to embrace M2M technology for building smarter cities.

China, in particular, emerged as the leader among this pool, as more than half of IT managers in that country who participated in this survey asserted their companies embrace M2M as well as BYOD concepts.

Furthermore, 92 percent of respondents in India and 90 percent in China identified M2M as simply the next step for the consumerization of IT.

For reference, SAP commissioned Harris Research to poll more than 750 IT managers and decision makers (both full and part-time) at companies across Brazil, China, Germany, India, the U.K, and the U.S.