For many decision-makers, the Internet of Things remains a catchphrase without a business case. Clearly, they haven't been paying attention. IoT sounds hip, but is merely an updated term for machine-to-machine communications, and that was merely an attempt to make old-fashioned "telemetry" sound cool. One of the clearest pictures of the growth of IoT in South Africa lurks in the last Vodacom interim results, for the end of September 2016, which put a precise number to it: 2.6million IoT connections on its network. That represents 7.5% of its subscriptions, up from 5.5% just 18 months before. To paraphrase a famous misquote, a billion rand here and a billion rand there, and soon you're talking real money. The key to the take-up of IoT services like smart electricity meters, water-leak detection, wildlife tracking, and traffic light management is as old as business itself: the impact on the bottom line. "If it doesn't save money or add a huge amount of value, no one in South Africa wi...
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