As Forrester Research notes, much of the early buzz surrounding IoT, particularly in the enterprise, has focused on efficiency and cost savings. New diagnostics will help improve utilization and maintenance of a host of expensive business assets.

But in this age of the customer, a focus only on cost savings is misplaced. The next stage of IoT will be about about creating possibilities – products will become vehicles for entirely new ecosystems of cloud-based services and markets. Among several other trends, when they look forward to 2015 Forrester predicts that:

• IoT customer success stories will thankfully displace the “billions of devices” hype. Enough already with the Carl Sagan–like references to billions and billions of devices — we’ll finally see a focus on customer success stories about improved machine uptime, better customer experience, and new as-a-service business models.

• IoT software platforms will become the rage, displacing the hardware. Much of the early hype has been about cool new sensors, high-tech wearables, and new wireless technologies. In 2015, we’ll see increased focus on the software and especially the cloud services to make all these sensors connect, upload data, and drive analytics that generate insights and enable business improvements.

Please join our Forrester co-sponsored webinar this Thursday, December 10th, at 11 AM for a wide-ranging discussion on the latest trends in IoT.

Michele Pelino, Principal Analyst at Forrester Research will join Rich Becker, IoT Strategist at Zuora to talk about:

• What’s driving the massive shift to connected devices – industry trends, consumer demands, key use cases
• Opportunities for building monetization models around bundled subscription services
• What process and technology capabilities are required to monetize a connected devices strategy?

Feel free to register here, and in the meantime enjoy our guide to “Monetizing the IoT: 7 Questions” on the Zuora Academy.