As an engineer, I admit, I tend to get caught up in the “How”. How things work, that is. And in the world of M2M, there’s a LOT of “how” to sink my teeth into. But there’s also quite a bit of “why.” And the more powerful the argument for “why”, the more likely a new technology is to be adopted in the general population.

A recent study by Market Strategies International found Americans are attracted to M2M concepts that seek to make their lives easier, safer, or help them save money.

American consumers found appeal in the primary M2M concepts
in this order:

1. Home energy management
2. Health monitoring
3. Property security
4. People/pet security
5. Mobile banking/shopping

Despite the somewhat obvious nature of this information, it left me with that familiar question: “Why?” Why we do what we do at Lantronix, that is.

Over the last 12-18 months, we’ve focused heavily on the “whys” related to M2M. Because we’ve arrived at the conclusion that the “how” we do things (connecting machines) is simply a conduit for the reason WHY we do it: To make your life better by providing more information in context. To help you make smarter decisions with less time, less money, and less risk.

We’ve worked in the last 2 years with cities to improve traffic flow (which saves time and improves safety), we’ve worked with government contractors to use M2M to remove humans from dangerous flight missions—and every day, we’re working on concepts to make the average person’s life just that much easier. But there is so much more information, which if it could be “mined” or “harvested”, could fundamentally change the way companies and individuals conduct business; this is the basic promise of M2M – Getting the right information to the right people at the right time. The “why” is the opportunity which is very exciting, the ‘how’ is the hard part and the one Lantronix is attacking head-on.

M2M in 2011 is an exciting prospect—so stick around—because there’s a lot more answers to “why” coming your way…