SENSEI WP1 delivered the results of the field inquiry conducted over 2009 towards users and business stakeholders in order to get an assessment of the SENSEI concept. The complete results are available in SENSEI D1.3 Business and Social Acceptance Studies for Open and Enterprise Solutions (see SENSEI deliverables).

This inquiry is the occasion to identify a series of SENSEI innovations and values in a variety of application domains, in particular future transports, city of the future, smart factory and crisis management. Within these application domains, over 40 professional users or experts in charge of future strategy or R&D processes have been interviewed in diverse companies.

The interviewees were introduced to the SENSEI concept through a presentation of the overall SENSEI vision, design goals and audio-visual showcases of Real World Internet application scenarios. Hereafter the users and stakeholders’ feedback to the SENSEI concept is presented.

The field inquiry enabled to identify key factors which structure the users’ perception of the SENSEI concept. Hereafter we highlight some of the most significant users’ motivation (and words) for adopting SENSEI. In D1.3, the comprehensive and detailed list of opportunities, challenges, obstacles or risks for SENSEI adoption are also available.

1.1         SENSEI feasibility

SENSEI concept is perceived as very ambitious, but the users are not concerned about its technical achievement within SENSEI project or beyond the project life. They believe that the technology is ready; they identify the SENSEI innovation in the combination of existing technologies and features in a consistent platform/framework. They believe in the incremental deployment of the Wireless Sensor and Actuator Networks (WSAN) along with the communication networks underlining SENSEI. This is an ongoing innovation in line with the societal trends. On the other hand, they think that SENSEI deployment     (optimal runtime vision) is highly dependent on deep societal changes and essential business mechanisms/standardisation effort (theses 4 and 7).

1.2         SENSEI in the users’ agenda

The companies anticipate SENSEI framework to support their R&D dynamics, to create new generation of applications. The professional end-users expect new SENSEI-enabled tools in their production processes. The users are aligned with the philosophy of the SENSEI framework which is designed for change in an open approach; they envision that they will appropriate the system by continuing the development of its functionalities. The users are conceiving themselves co-designers of the SENSEI framework. They welcome a “designed for change” SENSEI.

1.3         SENSEI principles ecosystem

The SENSEI design goals have been introduced to the users in order to get prioritization amongst them: the feedback is that the whole set of SENSEI design goals works as an ecosystem of principles making sense as whole. Horizontalisation principle is at the core, but this principle is nothing without the achievement of each design goal that contributes to horizontalisation.

1.4         SENSEI in the innovation dynamics

SENSEI is perceived by the users as an enabler for the innovation processes and innovation strategies of the companies. More globally, the SENSEI achievement is perceived as depending on user, societal and business changes but, paradoxically, SENSEI is seen as an innovation enabler that could motivate such expected business and societal changes. This looks like a virtuous circle that will support the dynamic of an adoption cycle: needed societal changes call for SENSEI.

1.5         SENSEI and Future Internet

The SENSEI framework is perceived as the key enabler of a new concept that transcends the current Internet of Things vision by combining the long-established Ambient Intelligence with the Future Networks. This could be summarized through the Real World Internet definition which is bridging the physical and the digital worlds. RWI brings a series of benefits and challenges, in particular bridging the existing internet-based economy with real-world businesses and industries.

1.6         SENSEI ethics and privacy issues

The essence of SENSEI captured through the Horizontalisation principle is the perceived as the contrary of an Orwellian centralised system for social control. Its distributed principle and ownership support the idea of a neutral system in terms of societal and human control.  Recent societal trends have changed the users’ perception of the privacy issues. Social networks pushed back the limits of the personal privacy. In addition, the current societal changes in terms of environment and energy issues motivate the development of SENSEI framework to make possible new types of societal schemes and large-scale applications to regulate them. Consequently, it would be acceptable for the users to share some private within large-scale SENSEI-enabled applications in order to make possible societal changes. This readiness of the users is strongly dependent on the robustness of reliable privacy and security SENSEI mechanisms.

1.7         SENSEI with regards to standardization

Standardization is needed to make the SENSEI vision realistic (and not just “ecumenical” as says the user). Using SENSEI should avoid users’ effort/cost in standardization (comply to standards or to promote them). Standardization is also extremely important for SENSEI to realize business opportunities. Standardization is one of the big challenge mentioned by the users and business stakeholders because some of them already attempted some efforts in that direction, so they know the stakes and the costs.

1.8         SENSEI business roles and value

From a business perspective the field inquiries enable to describe SENSEI business roles and their typical revenue generation mechanisms, customer value propositions, incentive schemes and key resources. In D1.3 a selection of key aspects is distilled, the results are clustered or detailed for each business role according to features. Globally the business roles have been clustered into three categories: infrastructure provider, service developers, service providers. SENSEI is expected by the companies to be an enabler like getting access to new market and new customers, new services, enhanced service capabilities, and access to other strategic reasons.