Won't get fooled again... Samsung wants a data-collecting role in IoT

Samsung is betting a few acres of its farm on the Internet of Things (IoT) by plonking down over US$100 million which it says will  fund developers and create an open system to catalyse the currently ‘paused’ IoT market.  

Samsung’s chief executive BK Yoon used CES in Las Vegas to announce the initiative and to emphasise Samsung’s planned adherence to open standards as a way of really getting the IoT ball rolling. “We can deliver the benefits of IoT only if all sensors can talk to each other,” Yoon said in his keynote address yesterday.

Why so enthusiastic?  Why so open? Because the Samsung vision of IoT is that of a huge dystopian info-gathering machine with Samsung playing the ‘Google’ role right at the centre where all the IoT big data gets distilled into gold.

Yes, there must be security; yes there will be fantastic environment-saving applications and home-securing hardware and, of course, there will be life-enhancing gadgets we never knew we wanted along with medical equipment strapped on (or probably surgically inserted) to keep us all living to 120 so we can enjoy it. Of course it will all work seamlessly and we’ll all be happier. But…. Yoon also waxed lyrical on what opportunities there will be to sell goods and services to the tracked users once all that data can be marshalled.

Obviously, having come through its Android experience with a rapidly commoditising hardware market and with the Cookie Monster sucking up the value of the user data, has concentrated the corporate mind: next time around, Samsung wants to play Google.