Standardization with Iot (Internet-of-Things)

Standards mean in general common methods, norms and regulations, based on which some work must be done, some product or service must be produced or some actions be conducted. Standards can be official and binding (de jure). These defined by official standardization organizations and can be connected to some legislation and they should be followed. Standards can be also unofficial (de facto), which have become common practices in certain industries without formal decisions and connections to laws and other official regulations. De facto standards can be formed by companies or groups of companies (interest groups, consortia, alliances, associations, etc.) which have come first into the market or application area and therefore the used methods/protocols etc. have become de facto standards. Standards play an important role in applying new technologies. With standards different actors in industry and in ecosystems can utilize similar and connective systems. This is even more important in complex global systems. Actually increasing complexity of system requires common platforms defined by standards. On the other hand standards can also be harmful in some business situations. Standardization processes are typically very time consuming. In digitalization development waiting for the official standards may cause loss of significant business opportunities. Generally standardization has been seen as a positive thing from the digitalization development points of view. Internet of Things is rather new digitalization based development where standardization is a contemporary question – both pros and cons of standardization are of great interest. This research looks at the standardization development globally. The research is done with a literature and internet search. The findings indicate that standardization in the field of Internet of Things is still expanding. There is an extensive amount of organizations that are dealing with standards, both official and nonofficial, and the application space is wide. Many emerging applications are exploiting their own standards and many standards are still under development. The solutions rely on various co-existing protocols, interfaces and platforms, either proprietary or standard. Some of the Internet of Things standards will be official standards, whereas some will be de facto standards that are agreed by forums or alliances or dictated by companies in decisive roles. Collaboration among various organizations is important and needed.