2021-11-22
354On the battlefield for the commanding heights of the new technology industry, the smell of gunpowder can already be smelled. The Internet of Things is shaking the nerves of the new industry pulse. If the traditional Internet is to connect people to people, then the Internet of Things is to connect people to things, things to things, to achieve a more intelligent production and life system.
Various types of smart home appliance systems were exhibited at the World Expo. The owner can use remote control to cook the food at home, wash the clothes, and even make coffee and tea in advance through remote control. This is the simplest life application of the Internet of Things. It is predicted that in the fields of production and social life such as environmental protection, medical treatment, logistics, electric power, public security, and urban transportation, the industrial scale of IoT applications will reach trillions, greatly surpassing the traditional IT industry. But who can eat this plump cake?
At the moment, the traditional IT industry multinational giants represented by IBM are still predators of the Internet of Things.
China’s Internet of Things industry seems to be returning to the old path of many industries. Domestic suppliers are always spinning around, designing key hardware such as chips and sensors, and key software such as operating systems, middleware, cloud storage, and cloud computing, mainly relying on foreign manufacturers. However, there are many integrations, few original creations, and only a handful of things with core intellectual property rights. This kind of application itself is a wedding dress for others. In fact, as in the color TV, automobile, and PC industries, the law of the modern industrial system is "nuclear" competition, not "shell" competition. There is no R&D and manufacturing capability for key components. Whether you stick someone else’s brand or your own brand, profits have long since flowed away from the purchase of core components.
Similarly, the lack of core patents is a huge bottleneck. According to a report, in China’s information industry, 85% of semiconductor patents are foreign companies, 70% are electronic components, special equipment, instruments and equipment patents, and 93% are radio transmission companies. Mobile communications and Transmission equipment foreign companies also accounted for 91% and 89%. At any point where a new industry breaks through, local innovative companies are shrouded in the shadow of "oligarchs", and the ascendant Internet of Things industry is no exception.
It must be admitted that this is the cruel reality facing China's emerging technology industry. According to the classic "comparative advantage" theory, each market participant has to do "the best thing". China's technology is backward, but the quality of personnel is good, and the price of labor is low. It is the life of "integration", and at most, it should cooperate with personal services. , Earn a few hard dollars. This actually means that any technology catching up and surpassing is "uneconomic", "high cost", and "uneconomical". It is best to accept "technical feeding" from others and be an obedient migrant worker. If placed 10 years ago, or 5 years ago, this argument is still the mainstream voice. But today, with the blood and tears of the "Foxconn incident", I believe that many ambitious local technology companies will not be so willing.
Since the end of last year, the trend of the Internet of Things industry in various parts of China has been quite obvious. It is said that Shanghai, Jiaxing, Hangzhou, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Wuhan, Chongqing and other cities are all planning to rush the IoT industry development plan, and operators such as China Telecom and China Mobile are also planning IoT strategies. There have been concerns that if domestic enterprises and local governments at all levels cannot effectively integrate, they may generate low-end vicious competition, increase internal friction, and be defeated by the multinational "oligarchs" adopting a divide-and-conquer strategy.
Obviously, what is lacking in the development of the Internet of Things is not enthusiasm and motivation, but a unified will and overall plan. A national standard for the Internet of Things based on China's national conditions must be formulated as soon as possible, otherwise the Chinese market without unified technical specifications will be occupied by the "multinational force", and the industrial form and scale will be completely destroyed due to incompatibility. At the same time, the national specialized agencies come forward to join core R&D institutions, manufacturers, suppliers, operators, local governments and key industries and other application departments to form the "Internet of Things Industry Alliance". It should also be necessary to promote the healthy development of the industry. Prepare conditions.
The "catch-up" strategy of technologically laggards should be centralized, efficient, and even ubiquitous, otherwise it will not be enough to make up for the hardware gap. And some so-called "market rules" are often the ropes used by "oligarchs" monopolists to restrain latecomers. When they are broken, they will break. They cannot stick to the rules. They must be able to apply the flexible tactical skills of "you beat you, I beat mine". This is the basic principle for almost all emerging technology industries to achieve breakthroughs.
The concept of "Internet of Things" is to realize the intelligent connection between things. It is foreseeable that the prosperity of China's Internet of Things industry will first depend on whether various industry participants can achieve a high degree of cooperation and tacit understanding of "people-to-people" intelligence.
