Three IoT lessons from the Softbank acquisition of Arm

Sheetal Kumbhar, Aug. 03, 2016 – 

The news that Softbank, one of Japan's leading telecoms operators, has made a move to acquire Arm, one of the strongest technology companies to come out of Britain has shaken the world and come as a bit of a surprise. The surprise is because the bulk of Softbank's operations lie in the mobile market and not the Internet of Things (IoT).

While most headlines have focused on whether or not the 23.4 billion (20.2 billion) deal is good or bad news for the UK tech sector following the Brexit vote last month, it's important to try and look beyond that and think about why this deal is bigger than just a simple takeover. As Remi de Fouchier of Gemalto says, we need to look at what the key implications will be for mobile network operators (MNOs), the IoT and even the industrial IoT.

It's an IoT future for MNOs

We all know the dream is an IoT where billions of powerful connected devices are available, and with IDC predicting there will be 200 billion connected devices operating amongst us by 2020, the IoT is a digital revolution tipped to eclipse any of those that came before it.

SoftBank's acquisition is a small showcase of operators' shift towards the IoT and it's not surprising MNOs want to be at the centre of this growing ecosystem. Only last year, Vodafone partnered up with EMC to invest 2 million in developing an industrial IoT infrastructure in Cork, Ireland, with Verizon also signalling its intentions by buying the telematics company, Telogis.

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