Ann: Buddy partners with Digicel to sell and distribute Buddy Ohm, page-63

these comments about consumer electronic IoT products forget the recent past. in fact they sound exactly like what people were posting 18 months ago - basically they are the vanilla ioT concepts all the magazines were talking about 2-3 years ago

the company has just been through a learning curve about spreading itself too thin - it originally did what you are suggesting and chased the IoT horizontal (ie. thinking of IoT as the solution and everything IoT as being potential sales markets)

the lesson learnt - which i forecast it 6 months ahead of the Dec strategy shift - was that a small company needs to focus on an industry vertical - preferably one where it has an edge.

When you only have small sales group and you are selling a product people dotn even know they want yet - you have to have a sharp sales offering. That means industry specific solutions.

BUD needs to stick to 'smart cities' vertical where it can build out a brand seen as having a competitive advantage and a raft of relationships and sales channels that are mutually synergistic

Go chasing things like car IoT and theyll get lost as just another behind the scenes brand getting stomped by Apple/Google/GM/ etc etc

IoT backend systems really isnt a unique competence in and of itself.

A company that just provides an undifferentiated backend IoT data storing and analysis package only has relatively limited brand protection against new entrants competing for market share.

What becomes 'differentiated' and a powerful protection for margin and marketshare is building a perception of expertise in one specific industry or area

Im not saying all the various front end products like cars, fridges etc cant eventually feed into a BUD platform

But I am saying that shouldnt be a priority or area of capital spending - they can be a passive opportunity that can be integrated if opportunities naturally occur - but not what the company should chase at this stage of its lifespan

BUD will grow fastest and most safely building up products the appeal directly to the 'smart cities' buyer groups.

there will be natural consumer electronics buying at the fringes - as is already occuring with Ohm - and over time that can morph into serious business units on their own

But chasing it now and BUD will get lost in the massive number of IoT wannabes and tech majors all trying to move into that space

Though of course if BUD ends up developing a key expertise that gives it a unique generalised IoT offering - then by all means the broad consumer electronic ,mass market is a great place to go.

I just dont see it at this point in time.