Verizon has made $495 million revenue so far this year from connected devices, or the so-called Internet of things, but it wasn’t enough. “None of us was satisfied with how rapidly it was growing,” said Mike Lanman, the senior vice president of Enterprise Products on the Product and New Business Innovation team at Verizon.
To ensure that number continues to grow, the telecommunications company has unveiled a strategy that involves partners, a cloud product, cheaper modems, and new data plans. But most importantly, Verizon’s executives understand that in the future where cars, factories, and appliances in the home are connected to the Internet, success will be about selling applications not mere cellular connections. And those executives have learned from their past mistakes trying to force mobile apps on an unwilling audience of consumers, so this time around they are focusing on building the tools, not the apps.
