Michele Pelino at Forrester Research recently wrote a blog article on the rise of M2M opportunities, entitled "Vendors: Prepare For The Rise Of Machine To Machine (M2M) Opportunities". Roughly eight years ago, Forrester introduced the concept of the X Internet, made up of Smart sensors, Smart objects connected to Smart services. They had it right, but it just took a while!

Back in 2001, the economics were not right. Wireless data communication was very expensive. And the technology was in its infancy -- we had just introduced the 1.0 version of our product.

Now, with the emergence of platforms for building M2M applications, such as the Axeda SmartLink Platform, Forrester's vision eight years ago is now becoming a reality.