Maurice Mortell, managing director of Ireland and emerging markets, Equinix. Image: John Ohle
Currently, one-third of businesses in Ireland have some form of internet of things deployment and this will increase to 40pc in the year ahead.
A survey of senior IT decision-makers by data centre giant Equinix has found that 40pc of Irish businesses will increase their internet of things (IoT) deployment in 2017.
Almost half (47pc) of companies admitted that they don’t have a specific IoT strategy and don’t expect to implement one in the next five years.
‘Ireland is very well positioned when it comes to IoT innovation and we’re well equipped to become a location of choice in the future’
– MAURICE MORTELL
However, an additional 28pc of companies don’t currently have an IoT strategy but do plan to implement one by 2021.
Currently, 33pc of Irish enterprises deploy IoT technology within their business. Leading the way are retail (67pc), education (60pc) and healthcare (50pc).
The Ireland of things
Speaking with Siliconrepublic.com about the research, Maurice Mortell, managing director of Ireland and emerging markets at Equinix, said that Ireland is very well positioned when it comes to IoT innovation.
“We can see from the survey that many Irish companies are yet to make huge advancements in their deployment of IoT technologies. However, Ireland is very well positioned when it comes to IoT innovation and we’re well equipped to become a location of choice in the future. We’ve got great companies like Movidius making strides in the IoT area and Enterprise Ireland is doing fantastic work to ensure we become an IoT hub. Now, we just need our enterprises to catch up and realise the great opportunities that IoT offers.”
Mortell said that data centres have a key role to play in the tapestry of IoT devices that will overlay the world.
“We enable data to be gathered securely and in real time, which is critical to today’s businesses. IoT is creating an explosion of data that businesses simply can’t handle in the traditional on-premise data storage facility. As a result, they can experience slower, interrupted service delivery.
“For IoT to work – and by that, I mean to get the most from the data produced by your IoT devices – you need extremely quick collection, storage and analysis of data. That can only be achieved through interconnection and edge computing. As the world’s largest data centre provider, Equinix is the best equipped company in the world to offer this.
“Businesses need a place where they can access their data in a secure, fast and dedicated way. By providing direct interconnection between customers and their partners, we enable businesses to react in real time and stay ahead of the competition. We’re the intersection point between the internet of things, cloud and the enterprise – we’re the digital highway for data analytics.
“On top of that, our Interconnection Oriented Architecture puts data at the edge of the corporate network, ensuring the analytics happens at the source of the data.”
