IoT Platforms and Software – 3rd Edition

IoT Platforms and Software is the third strategy reportfrom Berg Insight analysing the latest developments on theIoT connectivity management, device management andapplication enablement platform markets.

This strategic research report from Berg Insight providesyou with 170 pages of unique business intelligence including5-year industry forecasts and expert commentary on whichto base your business decisions.

Highlights from this report:

360-degree overview of the IoT ecosystem.Insights from 30 executive interviews with market leadingcompanies.
Summary of the latest industry trends and developments.
Updated in-depth profiles of key players in the IoT platform market.
Reviews of the market strategies of leading platform vendors.
Perspectives on the evolution from vertical M2M solutions to the broader scale and scope of the IoT.
Extensive global market forecasts lasting until 2022.

This report answers the following questions:

Which trends and developments are shaping the IoT platformmarket?
What are the benefits of using third party IoT platforms?
Who are the leading providers of IoT connectivity, devicemanagement and application enablement platforms?
What are the main drivers behind the adoption of IoT platforms?
Which are the leading IoT platform vendors in the major marketverticals?
What are the key features of the application enablementplatforms available today?
Which mobile operators have deployed IoT connectivitymanagement platforms?
What is the potential market size for third party IoT platforms?

Executive summary

IoT platforms provide developers with tools to connect and manage devices and integratecollected data into various applications and services. These platforms are intended to reducethe cost and development time for IoT solutions by providing standardised components thatenterprises can build upon. The relatively new product category facilitates the growing trendaway from time-consuming in-house developed and bespoke IoT solutions. Broadlyspeaking, most IoT platforms fall into one of the following three categories: connectivitymanagement platforms, device management platforms and application enablementplatforms.

The connectivity management platform (CMP) market is characterised by a limited number ofproviders, although several new players have emerged in recent time following developmentsin the domains of LPWA and software-defined networks. Cisco Jasper is the dominantcommercial CMP for mobile network operators worldwide and had about 75 millionconnections at the end of 2017. Other major vendors include Ericsson, Huawei, Amdocs,Comarch, as well as Nokia that launched its Nokia WING service in Q1-2017. Start-ups suchas EMnify, Flo Live and Soracom have introduced cloud-based core networks dedicated forIoT that are offered as a service. A number of major mobile operators continue to invest in thedevelopment of their proprietary platforms to differentiate from the competition. Vodafone’sManaged IoT Connectivity Platform stands out as the leading proprietary connectivitymanagement platform with about 67 million connections at the end of 2017. CMPs are also akey component in the value proposition from IoT managed service providers. Aeris and KOREhave consolidated their positions as leading players in this segment, with 10 million and 9million connections respectively at the end of 2017.

The market for device management (DMP) and application enablement platforms (AEP) isnotably crowded and has in recent time experienced a new wave of investments from majorcloud infrastructure providers and enterprise software vendors. Berg Insight estimates thatthe total market value for commercial DMPs and AEPs was US$ 1.1 billion in 2017. Growingat a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 36.2 percent, the market value is expected toreach US$ 4.9 billion in 2022.

Chipset, module and device vendors continue to move up the stack to offer software andservices. Leading providers of device management platforms include the majorsemiconductor IP supplier Arm, the cellular module manufacturers Sierra Wireless, Telit andGemalto, as well as the independent software vendor Wind River. The application enablementplatform market is fragmented and populated by a host of start-ups, as well as majorcompanies from the technology and industrial sectors. These companies have developedofferings that typically have a specific focus on a set of capabilities, often related to their corebusiness. GE and PTC spearheaded the effort of promoting IoT in the industrial sector on abroader scale. While GE has shifted focus to mainly provide solutions rather than its Predixplatform alone, PTC has emerged as the leader in the space. Additional vendors with highinvolvement in the industrial sector include Software AG, Bosch, IBM, SAP, Oracle, Exosite,Device Insight and Altair Engineering. C3 IoT that specialises in data management andanalytics has built a strong position in the utilities sector, followed by GE, Hitachi and IBM.

Start-ups such as Ayla Networks, Arrayent (now part of Prodea), Greenwave Systems andWaylay have built substantial customer bases in the consumer electronics and smart homemarkets. Amazon, Google, Bosch and Samsung also serve large internal customers in thisdomain. An increasing number of companies target the transportation and smart citiesmarkets including Bosch, Eurotech, Cisco, Davra, InterDigital, HPE and Nokia.

In 2017–2018, the major cloud infrastructure providers Amazon, Microsoft and Googlecontinued to invest heavily in their IoT offerings to drive growth in their cloud businesses.Berg Insight expects that the higher level of involvement of the cloud infrastructure providersover time is likely to lead to further specialisation among the IoT platform vendors and morepartnerships between vendors with complementing capabilities. Merger and acquisitionactivity has risen sharply in recent time and the market has now entered a consolidationphase. A level of fragmentation in the market is however expected to remain due to lack ofstandards, but also due to specific requirements in industries characterised by mission criticalapplications such as automotive, healthcare and manufacturing, as well as in the criticalinfrastructure industries.