• by Chuck Martin , Staff Writer, June 22, 2016

Some big guns are starting to flex their muscles to push the Internet of Things along.

For some time, there have been various standards groups aiming to help sort out and guide the details behind the idea of connected devices actually working together.

Keeping in mind that plug and play took years to actually be functional in the PC world, even for a PC to recognize what printer just got turned on in a home network, this is no small feat.

And this capability is even more critical in the Internet of Things, since there are so many smart things coming from so many places and landing in locations where consumers want them all to work in harmony.

Some good news on this front is that major suppliers are starting to enter the fray in a big way.

Earlier this week, Samsung announced it was going to invest $1.2 billion, with half of it going to IoT startups in the U.S. and the other half to develop technology in its U.S facilities.

And now Samsung is partnering with Intel for an initiative to create recommendations for a national IoT strategy in the U.S.  The idea is to gather additional industry companies and organizations to collaborate on policies to recommend to U.S. agencies involved in the Internet of Things.

There are significant issues on the IoT horizon, most notably those dealing with privacy and security.

Marketers would be well advised to keep a sharp eye on the behind-the-scenes privacy regulation discussions, since they could have a major potential impact of how brands and agencies will interact with consumers through all the IoT smart devices flowing into the marketplace.

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The MediaPost IoT Marketing Forum is being held Aug. 3 in New York. Check it out the agenda here