In February 1988, in Palo Alto, California, a startup company was founded by Armas Clifford “Mike” Markkula Jr. the grandson of a Finnish immigrant to the US. That company, Echelon Technology, would go on to develop the LON protocol, and help pioneer the evolution of open standard networking platforms, making a big contribution to the IoT as we know it. In this article, we trace the journey of Echelon up to its most recent chapter, when it joined the IoT Energy Harvesting specialist EnOcean last week.  Mike Markkula was the original angel investor, first chairman, and second CEO for Apple Computer Inc., providing the critical early funding required for the firm to start. As an experienced engineer, Markkula wrote several early Apple II programs but also was known for his managerial support in the early days of Apple, his role was described by the NY Times as “adult supervision” for his younger co-founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. At the company’s […]