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Rob Tiffany

Research Director at IDC

Houston, United States

As a Research Director at IDC, Rob is a cloud infrastructure analyst and strategist. He’s held executive leadership roles at Ericsson, Hitachi, and Microsoft and is a globally recognized pioneer and leader in IoT and Digital Twin technologies.

As Vice President and Head of IoT Strategy at Ericsson, he drove 5G connection management with the IoT Accelerator and participated in global M&A activities. As Chief Technology Officer at Hitachi, he received the Presidential “Product of the Year” award for designing the Lumada Industrial IoT platform which landed in Gartner’s “Leaders” Magic Quadrant. Spending most of his career at Microsoft, Rob was Director and Global Technology Lead for the Azure IoT cloud platform which also made it to Gartner’s “Leaders Quadrant.” Prior to Microsoft, he co-founded NetPerceptor developing one of the industry’s earliest Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) platforms for smartphones.

As a bestselling author and keynote speaker, Rob is a frequently sought-after source of insights globally. He’s been featured in Wired, Forbes, CIO, Fierce Wireless, Inc. Magazine, Dataconomy, Thinkers360, Onalytica, Mobile World Live, Techonomy, and SXSW.

Rob is a U.S. Navy Submarine veteran.

Available For: Advising, Authoring, Consulting, Influencing, Speaking
Travels From: Seattle, WA
Speaking Topics: Internet of Things, Digital Twins,

Speaking Fee $10,000 (In-Person)

Rob Tiffany Points
Academic 0
Author 485
Influencer 474
Speaker 11
Entrepreneur 140
Total 1110

Points based upon Thinkers360 patent-pending algorithm.

Thought Leader Profile

Portfolio Mix

Featured Videos

Building the Enterprise Brain with AI, IoT, and Private Data
June 17, 2026
Can the Web Save the Internet of Things?
June 17, 2026
Cellular IoT Best Practices
June 17, 2026

Featured Topics

Company Information

Company Type: Company
Minimum Project Size: N/A
Average Hourly Rate: N/A
Number of Employees: 1,001-5,000
Company Founded Date: Undisclosed

Areas of Expertise

5G
Agentic AI
AI 30.04
AI Infrastructure
Analytics
Architecture
Big Data
Business Strategy 30.65
Climate Change
Cloud 31.79
Cybersecurity
Data Center
Digital Disruption
Digital Transformation 33.89
Digital Twins 41.49
EdTech
Emerging Technology
Energy
Entrepreneurship
FinTech
Innovation 32.26
IoT 31.67
IT Leadership
IT Strategy
Leadership
Lean Startup
Management
Manufacturing
Marketing
Mergers and Acquisitions
Mobility 100
National Security
Open Source
Predictive Analytics
Product Management
PropTech
Security
Smart Cities
Social
Startups
Supply Chain
Sustainability 32.41
Telecom 51.99

Industry Experience

Aerospace & Defense
Agriculture & Mining
Chemicals
Federal & Public Sector
Financial Services & Banking
High Tech & Electronics
Manufacturing
Oil & Gas
Professional Services
Retail
Telecommunications
Travel & Transportation
Utilities

Publications & Experience

1 Advisory Board Membership
Advisor, TEAL
TEAL
January 03, 2022
Advising the founders on IoT trends and strategy

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Tags: IoT, Business Strategy

2 Author Newsletters
Private AI > Chapter 1
Linkedin
February 06, 2025
More and more organizations are looking to create Private AI infrastructure to drive insights and value from their private data. That said, they're only familiar with using public cloud-based offerings like ChatGPT and Claude. Leaders don't want their sensitive corporate to data to leak into public large language models (LLMs), but they don't know how to get started with private LLMs.

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Tags: Digital Transformation, IoT, Mobility

Walking to Omaha Beach: A Personal Journey through Normandie
Linkedln
June 06, 2024
Cutting it way too close when transferring from Gare du Nord on the RER, I caught a train from Paris to Bayeux at Gare Saint-Lazare with only four minutes to spare.

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Tags: Digital Transformation, IoT, Mobility

3 Board Memberships
Board Member, IoT World Today
IoT World Today
January 01, 2020
Collaborate with other board members to deliver Internet of Things and Digital Transformation content and best practices for in-person and online events and to drive media roadmap.

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Tags: IoT

Board Member, Elevate Our Kids
Elevate Our Kids
January 01, 2020
Board member for a non-profit organization with a mission to put a computing device and Internet connectivity in the hands of every child in underserved communities to empower their education.

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Tags: IoT, Education

Board Member, Washington IoT Council
Washington IoT Council
January 02, 2017
Collaborate with fellow board members, industry leaders and the state government to support the local economic growth of Washington State's IoT ecosystem.

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Tags: IoT, Ecosystems

8 Books
Mobile Strategies for Business: 50 Actionable Insights to Digitally Transform Your Business
Hood Canal Press
January 17, 2016
The mobile tidal wave has permanently transformed the consumer world and now it's washing up on the shores of the enterprise. This drives the need to mobilize existing applications, modernize infrastructures, build new apps for employees and customers, and bring order to your environment via enterprise mobility management. Mobile Strategies for Business guides you through this transformation and drives positive outcomes including reducing expenses, improving employee productivity, increasing revenue, boosting user engagement and reducing risk.

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Tags: Mobility

Walking to Omaha Beach
Blurb
January 23, 2015
A trip to visit the D-Day beaches in the Normandy region of France takes an interesting twist. Take a visual journey through the beautiful French countryside and soak in the history of the largest military invasion in history.

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Tags: Culture

Keeping Windows 8 Tablets in Sync with SQL Server 2012: Private and Hybrid Cloud Solutions for the Mobile Enterprise
Hood Canal Press
May 01, 2013
Give your company a competitive advantage by creating mobile business apps for the world’s first enterprise-class tablet.

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Tags: Cloud, Digital Transformation, Mobility

Enterprise Data Synchronization with Microsoft SQL Server 2008 and SQL Server Compact 3.5 Mobile Merge Replication
Hood Canal Press
June 26, 2009
With the world's largest organizations rolling out tens of thousands of Microsoft Windows Phones, Slates, laptops, tablets and netbooks to empower their respective mobile workforces, the ability to create mobile line of business solutions that support large numbers of users is absolutely critical. In his fourth book on mobile infrastructure and development, Rob Tiffany shows you how to take the SQL Server data you use to run your organization and make it available to all of your mobile employees.

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Tags: Digital Transformation, Mobility

Mobile Application Architecture Guide: Patterns and Practices
Microsoft Press
January 01, 2008
Application architecture pocket series

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Tags: Mobility

Windows Mobile Data Synchronization With SQL Server 2005 and SQL Server Compact 3.1
Hood Canal Press
January 01, 2007
With the world's largest organizations rolling out tens of thousands of Windows Mobile devices to empower their respective workforces, the ability to create mobile line of business solutions that can support large user populations is critical. In his third book on mobile development, Rob Tiffany shows you how to take the SQL Server data you use to run your organization and make it available to all your mobile employees. He walks you step-by-step through the process of building a secure, performant, 4-tier mobile synchronization architecture designed to scale to thousands of users. You'll also learn how to create occasionally-connected Windows Mobile applications that are designed to thrive in unreliable wireless conditions. Take the guesswork out of mobilizing your organization by tapping into the experience of one of the world's foremost authorities on Windows Mobile infrastructure and development.

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Tags: Digital Transformation, Mobility, Telecom

SQL Server CE Database Development with the .NET Compact Framework
Apress
September 26, 2003
SQL Server CE Database Development with the .NET Compact Framework is the only book of its kind for developers wishing to examine in detail all aspects of SQL Server CE 2.0 and the .NET Compact Framework, the most significantly updated area of Visual Studio 2003.

Featuring in-depth information on SQL Server CE 2.0 and the .NET Compact Framework, this book illustrates how both Visual Basic .NET and C# can be used to build powerful database applications for the Pocket PC. While other .NET Compact Framework books try to broadly cover general programming issues, this book focuses strictly on database application development.

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Tags: Digital Transformation, Mobility

Pocket PC Database Development with eMbedded Visual Basic
Apress
July 30, 2001
This is the first book on the market to focus on Pocket PC development using Microsoft's free eMbedded Visual Basic 3.0. Pocket PC Database Development with eMbedded Visual Basic is designed to get software developers up to speed building Pocket Access database applications using eMbedded Visual Basic on the Pocket PC. Author Rob Tiffany has put his own Visual Basic background to work in developing advanced Pocket PC applications for large energy companies. It's from this perspective that he guides professional Visual Basic and Access programmers into the world of Pocket PC software development.

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Tags: Digital Transformation, Innovation, Mobility

1 Founder
Digital Insights
Digital Insights
January 03, 2022
At Digital Insights, we provide strategy, technology, and execution to deliver value from data to drive sustainable agriculture.

Since management and improvement requires measurement, our building blocks for success include sensors to measure the physical world, networks to transport measurements, digital twins to track assets and manage data, analytics to derive insights, and automation to scale improvements.

We combine those building blocks to drive smart, sustainable agriculture that requires fewer natural resources to deliver crop yields for growers and put food on the table.

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Tags: IoT, Sustainability, Digital Twins

1 Industry Council Member
Innovation Advisory Council Member, Vation Ventures
Vation Ventures
January 01, 2018
Connecting startups, venture capital and large enterprises to drive innovation.

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Tags: Innovation, IoT, Venture Capital

1 Keynote
Getting to Net Zero with the Industrial Internet of Things and Digital Twins
IoT in Oil and Gas Conference
September 12, 2022
If you can't measure it, you can't manage it, or improve it.” This variation on a famous quote by management guru Peter Drucker has been a driving force in managing people and processes in the most successful companies over the last century. When it comes to everything else, you need IoT to measure it and digital twins to manage and improve it. The drive toward net-zero emissions is an all-hands-on-deck imperative requiring new levels of innovation throughout the oil and gas industry. Join Rob as he shows you how digital technologies like digital twins and IoT have an important role to play in this transition.

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Tags: IoT, Sustainability, Digital Twins

1 Panel
Fireside Chat: Tackling Emissions and Executing at Scale
Energy Conference Network
March 27, 2024

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Tags: Sustainability

1 Podcast
IoT Coffee Talk
YouTube
April 01, 2020
Welcome to IoT Coffee Talk where we talk about all things related to the Internet of Things. This program was started by a group of LinkedIn friends who just happen to be thought leaders, experienced practitioners and business leaders in the technology and communications services industries and more. This channel will feature weekly recordings of our casual conversations on topics of the day with the hopes of delivering engaging and thought-provoking insights to our audience.

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Tags: AI, Digital Twins, IoT

Thinkers360 Certifications

5 Certifications

Thinkers360 Credentials

10 Badges

Radar

Blog

Opportunities

Events

1 Physical Event
Digitalization in Oil and Gas

Location: Houston    Date : September 04, 2024 - September 05, 2024     Organizer: Energy Conferences

The 10th Annual Digitalization in Oil and Gas will delve deeper into the intersection of digitalization and decarbonization, highlighting the transformation required for the sector to stay relevant, resilient, and achieve business value. This year, the focus is on leveraging AI and generative AI, driving sustainability and workforce development, and achieving operational excellence through digitalization.

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