Intel Kills Three IoT Projects: Internet of Things Reality Check

Intel has quietly killed three Internet of Things (IoT) projects, essentially injecting a timely reality check into the heavily hyped IoT market.

Among the IoT efforts Intel will abandon, according to ZDnet: The developer board Galileo and compute modules Joule and Edison. Galileo was a partner project with Arduino to take on the Raspberry Pi. The Edison platform was meant to serve and improve IoT devices while the more powerful follow-up Joule targeted robotics. Still, Intel remains committed to IoT market segments that "access, analyze and share data," a company spokesperson told ZDnet.

Despite the project cancelations, Intel has shown some momentum in the IoT sector. The company generated $721 million in IoT-related revenues in its Q1 2017, up 11 percent from the corresponding quarter last year. That's not huge growth, but it's growth nonetheless.

IoT Market Matures

Even as some IoT products and services fall out of the market, that could be a simple sign of industry maturity. In a recent analysis, 59 percent of IoT companies earned a high maturity grade – nearly double the number of companies that received a high IoT maturity ranking in an analysis that was completed in September 2015, ABI Research noted.

The number of connected IoT devices, sensors and actuators will reach over 46 billion by 2021. That’s a 200 percent increase from from 2016, according to Juniper Research.

Still, plenty  of challenges remain. Chief among them: Effective IoT security -- especially amid the rising tide of IoT malware and ransomware.