Nordic Semiconductor is one of the leading "Silicon Fjord" companies fueling the hot Internet of Things trend. But there are companies like Apple (AAPL 0.68%) -- 500 times larger than Nordic -- that are using their muscle to stake out claims in this space as well.
In this video from the fjords of Norway, Motley Fool analysts Eric Bleeker and Rex Moore explain the companies -- from Apple on down -- that investors interested in IoT need to be aware of.
A full transcript follows the video.
Moore: Because of this fantastic growth in this area, we heard a bit from the executives at Nordic Semiconductor of the resources they're putting behind this push.
Bleeker: Yes. When we were talking with the company, they said about 80% of their staff was working predominantly on Bluetooth Smart. That's never going to be perfect, but it shows very much how interested they are, because last quarter it was about 27.5% of revenue. That was up from about 2% in the final quarter of 2012, so you can see the enormous growth.
But it says a lot -- the company's belief in the future -- when you're allocating 80% of employees to something that's 27% of revenue. They believe that the growth is there, and it's hard to argue with them.
Moore: Again, because of that growth, we talked to some people from Cisco. They believe in this growth so much that they are doing all they can to get into things on the data collection side from the Internet of Things. Google also is getting into this.
This is a trend that can be approached, I believe, from many different angles for investors.
Bleeker: Yes. Like you said, everyone really believes in this. Google ... of course, Google is in the center of everything. We know about Google because they purchased Nest for $3.2 billion, which of course is part of the home automation side.
But Apple believes in this a lot too. They were a leader in enabling the standards behind Bluetooth Smart, and they've also built their beacon technology around Bluetooth Smart, so Apple has seen the vision in this, just ahead of everyone else.
To stop at Google or Apple ... it's all the leaders -- and that's not even talking about Microsoft, which has built this into Windows 8 as well.