VDC Research has been looking at the challenges and opportunities resulting from M2M - in particular quizzing OEMs across a wide cross-section of industries to get some insights into their M2M strategies.

A fundamental contradiction soon showed itself. According to VDC, although 73 per cent of OEMs surveyed increasingly cited M2M as being critical to their future success, at the same time they worried about development costs and and saw uncertainties around ROI as the biggest challenge facing their overall M2M efforts.

So the narrative is: "we're sure it's going to be huge (everyone says it is) but we can't see how we're going to make any money."

The report goes on to point out that while many organizations are "messaging around M2M as an important strategic initiative," most don't have an M2M strategy for their business.

Those things say to me that, for many of these surveyed OEMs at least, it's a question of fake it till you make it.... or.. "looks like you have to say something about M2M these days, so we'll say it's a major 'strategic' objective (strategic meaning we haven't done anything but think vaguely about how important it might be)."

VDC itself, however, is a proper believer and thinks the M2M opportunity is staggering. It says its research - M2M Communications: Connecting Next Generation Devices, Requirements and Deployment Options include - has uncovered:

• Perceived cost-based pressures and an inability to define ROI are limiting the ability of engineers to add the capabilities that will meet tomorrow’s M2M requirements.

• As IT architectures and strategies shift, M2M components must adapt. When organiszations move their infrastructure to the cloud, network paths for M2M will need to change.

• As M2M deployments scale up, so too must the processing power of the connected device. Multiple M2M-related factors will increase the load on the embedded processors that power many M2M applications.

• Network performance can make or break M2M deployments. M2M applications like remote control and support will significantly increase network traffic, creating real performance challenges for OEMs and their customers.