In this episode of the IoT For All Podcast, Ron Konezny, CEO of Digi International, joins Ryan Chacon to discuss why solutions are key to IoT growth. The conversation covers the IoT industry's strategic shift towards solutions-oriented offerings, emphasizing hardware-enabled recurring revenue models and the integration of wireless connectivity, platform software, and comprehensive services, the importance of reliability, security, scalability, ease of management, and company stability in IoT solutions, the future of IoT, including cost-effective monitoring, AI advancements, and improving change management and trust in technology, and the move from transactional to recurring customer relationships and the critical role of customer feedback in driving company direction. Ron Konezny is the CEO of Digi International. He has extensive experience in the wireless M2M industry, working with solutions comprised of hardware and cloud-based applications. He has extensive leadership experience in corporate strategy, manufacturing, operation, technology, finance, and business development. Prior to his time at Digi, Ron served as VP at Trimble Navigation Limited and was the founder of PeopleNet Inc. Ron is a 2009 winner of the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year® award in the Technology category. Digi International is a leading global provider of mission-critical and business-critical machine-to-machine (M2M) and Internet of Things (IoT) connectivity products and services. They help customers create next generation connected products and deploy and manage critical communications infrastructures in demanding environments. Their embedded modules and off-the-shelf routers, gateways, and network products are designed for reliability, performance, and security. Their cloud-based software and professional services help customers put their connected products and assets to work across a broad range of mission-critical industry applications. Founded in 1985, they've helped customers connect over 100 million things. Discover more about IoT at https://www.iotforall.com More about Digi: https://www.digi.com Connect with Ron: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ron-konezny-bba489/ (00:00) Intro (00:23) Ron Konezny and Digi International (04:21) Transitioning from hardware to solutions (09:09) The importance of offering complete IoT solutions (12:03) Advice for IoT companies transitioning to solution providers (16:25) Choosing the right IoT solution: buyer's perspective (21:29) The evolution of IoT: trends and predictions (26:06) Learn more and follow up SUBSCRIBE TO THE CHANNEL: https://bit.ly/2NlcEwm​ Join Our Newsletter: https://www.iotforall.com/iot-newsletter Follow Us on Social: https://linktr.ee/iot4all Check out the IoT For All Media Network: https://www.iotforall.com/podcast-overview