Patents can provide insights regarding the
state of the art of IoT (Internet of Things) innovation, and thus, a strategic
move of a company for the IoT business leadership. To compare the business
strategy of the three leading companies in the IoT Smart Home applications,
Apple, Google and Samsung, patent information is exploited for the cross-competitor
analysis.
According to Dr. Benjamin Gilad with the
Academy of Competitive Intelligence, the goal of the cross-competitor analysis
is to enable one to simplify predictions of competitors’ moves and countermoves
when multiple competitors are involved. Through the cross-competitor analysis, one
can understand that: Competitors’ behavior when there are several significant
competitors; Paradigm shifts in industries undergoing rapid change or
transition; Entry of new competitors into the competitive landscape; Future
directions in strategic move among industry contenders. The strategic map is a
tool used in the cross-competitor analysis for visualizing the competitive
landscape: A chart for a strategic parameter No.1 (e.g. product/service portfolio,
distribution channel etc.) vs. a strategic parameter No.2 (e.g. product/service
price, quality, brand etc.); The map is static (for dynamics, one can use
arrows).
To do the cross-competitor analysis for the
IoT Smart Home exploiting patents, more than 300 US patent published
applications of Apple, Google and Samsung that are related to the IoT Smart
Home applications are reviewed. To obtain the strategic parameters for the IoT
Smart Home, a system approach to the IoT patents is adopted. The disclosures of
the IoT patent can be considered as a system that is consist of several
subsystems: environmental context, IoT sensor, information, transfer mean and
processing tool.
A. Environmental
context is the context of the surrounding object(s) sensed by the IoT sensor.
Some examples are a person’s or vehicle’s location or movement,
surround environments (lighting, weather)/situations, and works to be done.
B. IoT sensor is a stand-alone or embedded device
that can sense/recognize its surrounding environments (including
position/movement/identification) with networking capability. Some examples are
RFID imbedded items, sensor embedded home appliances, wearable healthcare
devices and vehicle control system.
C. Information is the context data obtained
by the IoT sensor for specific purpose. For example, the context room
temperature is measure to obtain the data for automatic room temperature
control.
D. Transfer mean is the networking/communicating
medium/infrastructure that can interconnect sensing devices and connect sensing
devices to the internet. Some examples are 3G/4G/5G mobile networks, wireless
connectivity (WiFi,
Bluetooth, Zigbee, NFC etc.), internet/telephone connectivity and vehicle-to-vehicle
(V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) connectivity.
E. Processing tool is the back-end or
embedded (IoT devices, wearable devices) IT systems/processors that can process
the context information (e.g. cloud computing/big
data analytics) and
provide the value propositions exploiting the information. Some examples of the
IoT value propositions are:
·
Automation: Providing various automation
services for the customers’ job/task to be done (e.g. automatically order the
detergent for a laundry machine)
·
Care: Caring for customers (e.g. monitor
customers’ body status and provide various health care services; control
customer’s home cooling and heating/lighting system for energy savings; home
security system for safe and comfortable home environments )
·
Entertainment: Providing fun to
customers (e.g. AV systems, virtual reality games)
The IoT patent system can include the system
integration subsystem that integrate and manage the functionality of each
subsystem as a whole.
Each disclosures of more than 50 key patents
for the IoT Smart Home applications selected from the review are divided into
the IoT patent subsystems, and then, counted the numbers of patents for each
value propositions (automation, care, entertainment), context
(position/movement, environment/situation, job/task, and tools (mobile/wearable
devices, IoT specific devices, appliances).
Following figure shows the Activity Index vs.
value propositions strategic map for Apple, Google, and Samsung. The size of
the circle represents the total number of the patents for each value
proposition. Activity Index is a measure of a company’s relative innovation
activities in a specific innovation field: Activity Index = share of a specific
innovation sub-class in a company/share of a company’s patent in total patents,
where share of a specific innovation sub-class in a company = patents (innovation
sub-class)/patents (a company) and share of a company’s patent in total patents
= patents (a company)/patents (total company).
The map shows Google’s select and focus
strategy for providing the care value proposition. The map shows that Apple is most
active in the automation value proposition innovation compare to Samsung and
Google, even if Apple’s number of patent applications is smaller than that of Google
and Samsung.
Following figure shows the Activity Index vs.
tools/context for the value propositions strategic map for Apple, Google, and
Samsung. The size of the circle represents the total number of the patents for
each tools/context.
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