Internet of Things projects cause 'a clash of two worlds' in which only 'open-minded' people will succeed - Bosch

Dirk Slama of Bosch Software Innovations believes that there needs to be a bridge between those working on apps and on manufacturing

Internet of Things (IoT) projects that are led by vendors need open-minded individuals in order to succeed because of a clash of philosophies, according to Dirk Slama, director of business development at Bosch Software Innovations.

Slama, who was speaking to Computing at MongoDB World, said that IoT projects required a different line of thinking to other IT projects.

"I call this the clash of two worlds - on the one hand you have the internet guys who think in terms of the apps, and about agile projects, perpetual beta, a viable product, and trial and error; they want to deliver the first iteration after three months," he said.

"Then you have the machine guys who are on five year development cycles - that's how long it takes to develop an entirely new car, and if you think about quality management, a car which has been sold once has to stay out there pretty much unchanged for 10, 20 or 30 years and it's virtually impossible to make any changes after production," he added.

Slama believes these drastic differences between the two areas of IoT mean that you need open-minded people at both ends of the spectrum. In addition, he said that there was a need for people who could create a bridge with those working on the apps and the manufacturing.

But he doesn't believe the core technical skills have changed for those working on IoT projects.

He uses the example of emergency call services during a car crash in which the telematics device inside new cars should be able to connect to both a call centre, and if need be, can direct an ambulance to the site of the accident.

He said this type of project requires hardware, embedded software running on the hardware, a telecommunications element in order to ensure that the car can communicate with the call centre and emergency services in any country, and the core enterprise project of building up call centre software, among other things.

"I think this is the complexity of IoT. It's not necessarily a new thing [or new skills], but it's that some of the things are coming together at the same time," he stated.