In 2013, substantial steps towards building the Internet of Things at last began to materialize. Software automations, hardware optimizations and integrated platforms that fully exploit the convergence of industrial networks and machine-to-machine networks are examined closely here, to give IA and IT engineers a better idea of what challenges and obstacles they should be preparing for at the dawn of this new technological epoch. In this white paper, Moxa examines the sorts of technology industrial networks will be relying on as they begin to build and deploy machine-to-machine networks.