Michael Karlsen, Co-Founding father of Onomondo, and Rasmus Jensen, the corporate’s newly-appointed CEO, shared their insights on the challenges and way forward for IoT deployments.
“IoT continues to be not considered one of these form of seamless ecosystems that form of combine nicely between the completely different expertise components,” Karlsen said.


Karlsen emphasised the significance of integrating the three pillars of an IoT resolution: {hardware}, connectivity, and cloud. Onomondo goals to bridge the gaps between these pillars, shifting past conventional connectivity to change into a “expertise play to make these borders or boundaries go away.”
This method seeks to deal with the problem of siloed options, the place connectivity is commonly an afterthought. Onomondo advocates for “clever connectivity” to seamlessly combine these components.
Reflecting on the preliminary hype surrounding IoT, Karlsen famous the discrepancy between early predictions and actuality. “The standard view was that this was alleged to be 20 billion units in 2020. What occurred?”
Karlsen attributed this partly to the shift from consumer-focused IoT, like good fridges, to “behind the scenes industrial digitisation.” He additionally factors out that IoT scalability has been hindered by its reliance on {hardware}, in contrast to the web’s software-driven scalability. Onomondo goals to deal with this by taking “a extra software program primarily based method” to IoT complexities.
Bridging the legacy hole and studying from expertise
One of the vital tough challenges in IoT is integrating it into legacy programs. Karlsen used examples like Carlsberg and Maersk as an instance how Onomondo helps bridge this hole. He defined the issue of making certain older {hardware} can hook up with trendy cloud options and the problem of future-proofing units.
Onomondo positions itself because the “glue between the {hardware}” and the cloud. This allows Onomondo to behave as a “Google Translate layer” between previous and new architectures, facilitating the onboarding and simplification of IoT units into trendy cloud options. This method additionally relieves gadget producers of the “not possible engineering process” of predicting future cloud necessities.
“That form of tends to create this chasm of both you over-spec your units to cater to future cloud performance, otherwise you under-spec them and also you both run a danger of safety danger, or no matter it may be, or you need to preserve a number of programs for a number of generations of units,” explains Karlsen.
Karlsen recognized a number of prevalent errors in IoT implementation, with one key challenge being the notion of connectivity as an afterthought. He confused that connectivity ought to be built-in into the design course of from the outset to maximise its very important and scalable function within the resolution.
There’s additionally the truth that many firms at the moment are extra skilled with IoT deployments, having gone by way of preliminary makes an attempt. This rising expertise helps mood overoptimistic enterprise circumstances and higher put together for the realities of large-scale bodily deployments.
The function of IoT partnerships and a renewed imaginative and prescient for Onomondo
Partnerships are essential to Onomondo’s technique. Karlsen believes that partnerships are “an important half” of the corporate’s success and the broader motion to create a extra built-in IoT trade.
Onomondo fosters partnerships with module makers, cloud distributors, and MNOs (Cell Community Operators) to orchestrate seamless connectivity between units, networks, and clouds. Karlsen sees Onomondo as an “orchestrator” that permits any gadget to speak by way of any community to any cloud.


Rasmus Jensen, Onomondo’s newly-appointed CEO, mentioned his plans to make sure Onomondo’s continued upscaling, progress, and enlargement. He acknowledged the corporate’s robust imaginative and prescient, established by co-founders Michael Karlsen and Henrik Aagaard, and goals to “transfer the goalpost” for IoT even additional.
Jensen says his focus is on matching the corporate’s progress and thriving with its continued enlargement. He plans to bridge the long-term strategic imaginative and prescient with the short-term administration and constructing of a sturdy organisation.
Drawing on his expertise in scaling up firms, Jensen says that he assesses potential primarily based on the dimensions of the whole addressable market, the expertise’s differentiation, and the energy of the crew. He believes the IoT market has a large complete addressable market, even unbiased of the trade’s inherent progress.
Jensen says Onomondo’s differentiating expertise and the willingness of the founding crew, together with Karlsen, to tackle new roles, had been key elements in his resolution to affix and lead the corporate on to new heights.
“Having met a number of scale ups in my expertise …. discovering a founding crew which can be, on this case, like Michael, keen to form of not essentially step apart, however take a brand new function and look forward. It’s not simple to try this, however it does maintain quite a lot of alternatives,” explains Jensen.
Addressing safety and embracing rising developments
As an trade, the IoT has confronted no scarcity of high-profile safety and information privateness breaches.
Karlsen acknowledged the maturity journey of IoT and the safety challenges which have arisen. He reiterated the problem of the “weakest hyperlink within the chain,” the place conventional designs place safety accountability on the {hardware}.
Onomondo, for its half, goals to mitigate these dangers by taking part in an energetic function in making certain compliance with cloud safety necessities—permitting these necessities to evolve with out being constrained by the {hardware}.
Rising developments reminiscent of AI-driven edge computing, 5G standalone networks, and sustainability calls for are altering the IoT panorama. Nevertheless, Karlsen famous the tendency for the IoT and broader telecoms trade to deal with the “subsequent huge factor.”
Whereas acknowledging the relevance of those applied sciences for particular use circumstances, he emphasised the worth of the secure and scalable basis of current mobile and community applied sciences. He advocated for energetic consideration of the relevance and placement of those rising applied sciences – reminiscent of edge AI, 5G, and personal networks – to maximise their worth.
Onomondo is specializing in overcoming the basic challenges in IoT by fostering partnerships, bridging technological silos, and prioritising clever connectivity to drive the trade ahead. The imaginative and prescient set out by the corporate’s founders – superior with the recent management of Jensen – may go a good distance in direction of lastly realising the IoT’s full potential.


Wish to study concerning the IoT from trade leaders? Take a look at IoT Tech Expo happening in Amsterdam, California, and London. The excellent occasion is co-located with different main occasions together with Cyber Safety & Cloud Expo, AI & Large Information Expo, Clever Automation Convention, Edge Computing Expo, and Digital Transformation Week.
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