Jennifer Kent of Parks Associates has produced a report, "M2M: The Next Billion Mobile Connections". Although M2M is mostly of interest to B2B industries, the consumer arena will soon grow as well. Enterprises that think they will not be affected much by M2M should reconsider based on the information this report provides.

The report examines the growing cellular-enabled M2M industry and the opportunities for U.S. and global mobile service providers. It includes an overview of the M2M ecosystem, profiles M2M vendors, and analyzes the carriers' M2M strategies. The report provides insight into trends in consumer-facing vertical markets. It also includes forecasts on the connected consumer vehicle and mobile personal emergency response system markets.

It is anticipated that the number of U.S. connected cars and subscribers will increase rapidly, nearing 20 million by 2017. The Parks report states that 16% of U.S. vehicle owners who live in a broadband access-supported home have emergency notification services in their cars. About 60% of newer-car owners can access apps in their cars like maps and directions, while 40% can connect to the Internet and download music. Parks anticipates that 45% of all new cars by 2017 will have embedded cellular-enabled services.

If nothing else, enterprises like banks, insurance companies, Amazon, eBay and JC Penney will be using the car-resident systems as a channel for selling products and services. For example, I may be able to access customer service while I am stuck in traffic, a conversation I don't often like: I can be dually aggravated at the traffic and customer service agent at the same time.

From the article, "Mobile Internet of Things: An Explosion Soon" by Gary Audin.

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