Good morning, CIOs. Steelcase Inc., a 106-year-old manufacturer of office furniture, has a vision of the office in which chairs, tables, and other objects are part of a digital network.
Steelcase has been working with Microsoft Corp. for about three years on these efforts.
One new service, expected to launch this summer, offers Steelcase clients a mobile app that employees can use to find available rooms and other colleagues in real-time. “Steelcase Find” connects to a wireless network of infrared sensors and uses room-booking data that shows which workspaces are being used.
A mainstream thing. It’s an example of how the Internet of Things is hitting a different level of maturity, Steelcase CIO Steven Miller tells CIO Journal’s Sara Castellanos. “You’ve had some people just dabbling in it and testing the waters, but now it’s becoming much more of a mainstream thing that companies need to pay attention to,” Mr. Miller said.
Microsoft’s $5 billion IoT investment. The software giant says the money will go toward research and development in areas including security, creating new development tools and services as well as new products, services and programs.
A growth thesis for the ages. There will be an estimated 25.1 billion devices connected to the internet by 2021, up from 6.3 billion in 2016, according to recent research from Gartner Inc. Total spending on IT is expected to reach $4 trillion in 2021, up from $3.4 trillion in 2015, Gartner says.