The battle for Internet of Things standards: the competition of the three camps

There are many mobile phone chargers in the drawers of almost every home. The shape of the charging interface is also different. There are 24 pins, 20 pins, mini USB, Micro USB, iPhone c-type and so on. Why is there no uniform standard for a small mobile phone charger structure? Not only the charger, but also the concept of Cyber ​​Apartment, smart house, etc., as well as passing by, leaving no clouds. Compared with the current state of the art, these concepts and technologies may be premature, resulting in a short-lived; but the interchangeability between products, poor interoperability, is the reason for its true decline.

Looking back at a 2002 news report: "Home appliances, heating and cooling equipment, entrance doors, and even curtains and other items that need manual control, will be able to control and make reservations through the Internet and collection in the future. If the home network is realized, it will be Connecting indoor and outdoor environments... Home network technology still has some technical difficulties, because there is no unified standard technology, which can realize data exchange and processing between different devices. The future market potential is very large, the standard between enterprises The battle will enter a white-hot stage. It is expected that it will take another 1-2 years to achieve the formation of standard technology."

The current smart home concept is not much different from the functions and scope defined 14 years ago, but there is still no uniform specification and standard. The reason is because the opinions of many manufacturers and organizations cannot be unified, and it is very time-consuming and labor-intensive. The so-called standard is an Interoper-ability function that allows information exchange between devices of different manufacturers and models. Within the home network, products from different companies cannot be compatible and used. Even a company's products, because of the different models and versions, can lead to an unusable situation, which is very disappointing to consumers. The Internet of Things seems to escape the same fate.

Jeremy Rifkin, a future scholar who gave a keynote speech at CES, pointed out that "the Internet of Things has endless possibilities, but the biggest obstacle comes from the poor interchangeability of the platform and the cooperation between enterprises." YOON of Samsung Electronics President Boo-keun also said that "there is no unified standard without cooperation, and it will not talk about the future of the Internet of Things", emphasizing the interchangeability between products. Although international standards bodies and companies are striving to promote a unified standard program, issues involving many stakeholders and who will compete for dominance will falter the standardization work. Because standards are no longer a negotiation for product specifications, they can be an effective tool for occupying the commanding heights of the market. If the technology of the company is adopted as a standard, in addition to the collection of technology usage fees, it is also conducive to the realization of the market. On the other hand, if it is not adopted as a standard, the technology will have to face the forgotten dilemma.

Only one mobile phone camera includes various video standard technologies such as MPEG4, terrestrial DMB, LTE and so on. According to Intel's statistics, 30% of the smartphone's price is used to pay for technology patents, which means that $120 is a technology usage fee for a $400 smartphone. Qualcomm achieved high profits by charging royalties such as LTE and CDMA for communication standards. In 2014, Qualcomm achieved revenues of $7.96 billion, of which only $2 billion was absorbed in South Korea. Technical standards often coexist with patents and are a veritable battlefield without smoke.

The standards of the Internet of Things currently compete in three camps: Qualcomm-led Allseen Alliance, Intel-based OIC (Open Interconnect Consor-TIum), and the Google Thread Group. The earliest established Allseen Al-liance Alliance was launched in 2013 by Qualcomm, Lin-ux FoundaTIon, Cisco, Microsoft, etc., and has so far more than 180 alliance companies. Using the AllJoyn standard technology developed by the alliance, it is possible to make different operating systems and different brands of terminals compatible with each other, which is arguably the closest to commercialization.

The next force is the OIC organization jointly established by Intel, Samsung Electronics, Broadcom and other companies in 2014. As a competitor of Allseen Alliance, OIC started late, but already has more than 90 members such as Cisco and HP. Rapidly expand the size of its organization. OIC provides everyone with open source code IoTIvity and standards that can be used for free, and actively expands the IoT market.

The third largest force is the Thread organization led by Google, which is acquired by Google for $3.2 billion. The organization includes more than 160 companies such as Samsung Electronics, ARM, Freescale, and uses the standard technology maintained by the organization on the products of member companies. The standard uses a new IP wireless communication network to reduce security risks and energy consumption and thereby expand its share of the smart home sector.

In addition, the oneM2M group jointly established by standards bodies in Asia, the United States, and Europe is an international standardization body in the field of Internet of Things. The goal of the organization is to make smart homes, smart cars, etc. unrestricted by application areas and to establish mutually compatible platforms. At present, more than 220 companies, including Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics, Cisco, and IBM, and research institutions from various countries participate in the world's largest Internet of Things standards group.

The state of the entire IoT standard industry is complex. Like Samsung Electronics, Cisco, etc., participating in more than three standard groups at the same time; Apple is placed in a high cabinet, does not participate in any group, obviously a light pole commander. Broadcom, one of the founding members of OIC, recently announced its withdrawal from the organization; Qualcomm, the ally of the Allseen Alliance, joined the Thread organization. The mutual strategy and the difference in understanding make the situation of continuous and horizontal integration continue, which means that a unified standard still takes time. For a long time to come, there will be a situation in which a variety of standard technologies will coexist, but they all agree that there will always be a unified standard. However, the fact that each camp insists that its own standards are accepted is acceptable, and this trend is slow. To achieve the success of the Internet of Things, a unified standard is of course important, but at present, this situation of mutual politicity and multiple standards seems to be inconvenient, but in reality it is also an acceptable situation. The biggest obstacle to the realization of IoT commercialization is the security of the Internet of Things, which can lead to personal privacy leaks and can even threaten an individual's life.