The Walmart mandate failed mainly due to the lack of maturity of the technologies.
The main enabling factors for the IoT are as follows:
New, mature sensors with more capabilities and a high performance at a low cost.
New networks and wireless connectivity (such as PAN and LAN) interconnecting the sensors and devices to optimize the bandwidth, power consumption, latency, and range.
New, powerful, and cheap processors and microprocessors coming from the mobile devices world.
Real-time operating systems, leading to a more sophisticated and powerful integrated development platform at the maker's disposal.
Virtualization technology, which divides naturally into the data center, big data, and the cloud. ...
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