Internet of Things
The Ministry of Technology, ICT and Future Planning held a discussion session on January 10 in an effort to put together a national Internet of Things (IoT) strategy. The national basic plan for the promotion of the sector is scheduled to come out in March this year.
IoT can be defined as a set of intelligent infrastructure and service technologies that allow the exchange of information and interaction among people and things based on information and communications technology. It is currently in wide use in a variety of fields, including payment, wireless security, blood-sugar testing, smart farming, and natural disaster prevention.
“Global enterprises are rushing into the IoT market and no one can be sure who the winner will be,” said the ministry, adding, “We have discussed the national strategy since October last year and the finalized plan will be established and announced in March.” It went on, “The plan will revolve around common and standardized platforms matching global standards, which will be a boon to dealing with the problem of limited market growth caused by the redundant development of and incompatibility among products.”
The national strategy is predicted to also include measures that will help start-up and small-sized firms reduce their development costs and shorten the development periods. These are expected to lower the entry barriers significantly for the benefit of newly established companies. At the same time, the compatibility among developed products are going to be enhanced through standardization and international cooperation in the sector will be further boosted.
According to market research firm Gartner, the global IoT market is forecast to reach 47 trillion won (US$44 billion) in size by 2015. At present, global leaders such as Intel, IBM, Oracle, Google, and Qualcomm are working on related technologies and expanding the market at a rapid pace, and Korea is about 1.2 years behind the leaders in the industry.