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I remember when I switched from Blockbuster to Netflix so movies could be delivered to my door. What a great concept. Then I started streaming shows to my PC, and before long I got a Roku device so I could stream to the family room TV. Now I see Netflix is being included in Blu-ray players, game consoles, and TVs, and I just downloaded the Netflix player for my iPhone. I can see a movie practically anytime, anywhere thanks to The Internet of Things.

The retail industry has been buzzing with stories about the impact of mobile phones, but phones are just one "thing" that's out there. Soon it will be commonplace for TVs, cars, and refrigerators to be connected to the internet and information will be easily accessible. Retailers would be wise to think in these terms as they design their mobile infrastructure since mobile is simply step one. In the future I want to order products from all the connected devices I just mentioned.

The technologies that will make this happen are the wireless protocols in their many flavors, and the browser. Think about this: I can be talking to someone on my iPhone, walk into my house and have the call transferred via bluetooth to my home phone, which by-the-way is a VOIP system. Cellular to bluetooth to internet. Isn't wireless great?

What's holding us back is the lack of a consistent way to interact with these devices. Java was suppose to solve this issue, but it never really became widespread because people don't want to manage applications (and the JVM) on millions of devices. Browsers accessing the cloud makes perfect sense, if the browser could provide all the necessary capabilities required by modern applications. That's where HTML5 enters the scene, adding rich capabilities to browsers in a consistent manner.

So in the short-term its good to think about your mobile strategy, but also think about long-term strategies to leverage the internet of (smart) things.