Viable Sensor Network Industrial Ecosystem & Role of Zigbee/TinyOS

1. Viable Sensor Network Industrial Ecosystem & Role of Zigbee/TinyOS Technology Exchange 2005 Jim Schoenduve Chipcon

2. Industrial Ecosystems? • An industrial ecosystem is a community or network of companies and other organizations in a region who choose to interact by exchanging and making use of by-products and/or energy in a way that provides one or more of the following benefits over traditional, non-linked operations: • increased systemic energy efficiency leading to reduced systemic energy use, • increase in the amount and types of process outputs that have market value. (Gertler 1995, as cited by Lowe et al. 1997)

3. Industrial Ecosystems Viewpoints • Perscriptive or Descriptive? • Prescriptive • The way things oughtta be! • Descriptive • The way things are now.

4. Chipcon’s Unique Perspective TinyOS vs. ZigbeeChipcon is agnostic! TinyOS Zigbee Chipcon Defacto Radio Chipcon has a broad view of industry efforts; has over 5000 customers doing chip level adaptation of various Chipcon devices.

5. The Industrial Ecosystem • Prescriptive (The way things ought to be): • A self sustaining ecosystem is when there is a convergence in maturity of the following: • Markets • An economic imperative exists to deploy solutions • Capital • Sufficient capital is available to fund development and deployment of solutions • Technology • Hardware and software maturity exists such that solutions can be deployed to serve an economic imperative • Ideally, all three reach maturity simultaneously.

6. TinyOS Descriptive View(the way things are!) • Markets • Economic imperatives for deployment are being validated for ‘small’ networks • ‘Huge’ sensor networks are not so prevalent as candidates for possible deployments • Capital Funding • Academic and Government Sources • Internal Corporate Funding • Venture Capital Funding • Technology • Hardware availability accelerating. • Software ‘infrastructure’ still in a very dynamic state of change

7. Zigbee Descriptive View(the way things are!) • Markets for Zigbee • Existence of a ‘standard’ is causing exploration by Fortune 100 corporate interests. • Those owning huge sensor networks are exploring Zigbee • Capital • Internal Corporate Funding • Predominant Source of Funding • Venture Capital Funding • Too much to too few companies! • Technology • Hardware availability accelerating. • Software ‘infrastructure’ just emerging now

8. Threats to the Stability of the Industrial Ecosystem for TinyOS/Zigbee • Markets • ‘Overhype’ may threaten reputation of the community. • Economic imperatives for deployment for large networks are still being assessed. (and have been abandoned by some already.) • Capital • Academic funding in jeopardy? • Will the time horizons of software and hardware maturity match the time horizons of the VC community?

9. Threats to the Stability of the Industrial Ecosystem for TinyOS/Zigbee • Hardware maturity on track (little threat) • Hardware adaptation from other markets supporting the Tiny/OS Zigbee effort • The software systems are always the critical path • Software development is still a multi-year effort for products designed for industrial product deployments. • Will the ‘standards tube sock’ be sufficient to drive adaptation of a common set of hardware and software or will it fragment?

10. What to watch? • Market hype… • Let’s match expectations to reality • Venture funding • Watch inflows and breadth of companies funded. • Watch time horizon expectations • Technology • Consolidation or Fragmentation of Software? • [will the tube sock standard fit enough applications?]