Dec 25, 2017 | 4 min read

8 IIoT Predictions for 2018 (No.4): IIoT Market Consolidation

8 IIoT Predictions for 2018 - 4

Eight IIoT predictions for 2018

We have seen an enormous amount of progress in the industrial ecosystem in 2017. The ever evolving landscape of Digital transformation is in full speed providing many exciting new business models as well as providing solutions to some of the problems that have plagued traditional industries since their inception. We see longstanding business models reinvented as more businesses are realizing the need to digitally transform their businesses. We're also starting to move from pilots to ROI as the adoption of connected devices is  accelerating industries like manufacturing and energy according to a recent Verizon study.

Momenta Partners is committed to helping our clients, partners, and stakeholders navigate this evolving landscape and deliver sustainable value from Connected Industry.  To achieve this, we keep our finger on the pulse regarding industry trends and developments. Here's what we see as the 8  key developments for 2018 in IIoT, with suggested resources to enable you to learn more: 

 

Prediction No.4: 

 

We can expect the consolidation of the IoT platforms market

It’s a characteristic of early-stage markets that platforms emerge first to support applications running on top of them. As such we’ve seen a plethora of platforms emerge, up to 450 in total according to recent estimates. While early leaders like GE Predix had to retrench in 2017, other platforms like PTC’s ThingWorx and SAP Leonardo are gaining ground. Traditional industrial leaders like Schneider Electric and Siemens continue to leverage their own platforms to digitize their portfolios, industrial companies like ABB and Rockwell are leveraging partnerships with Microsoft. Cisco is taking more of a solutions approach to advance its platform while Amazon Web Service continues to build out the deepest portfolio of cloud-based IoT platform components.

With the surfeit of industry-specific and regional platform players, we’d expect many platforms to be subsumed into applications along with a broader wave of consolidation in the space. We don’t expect platform dominance in Industrial IoT comparable to database or cloud platforms, rather we see several leading platforms emerging with largely complementary industry and domain strengths.

 

Suggested resources: 

Gartner:  Competitive landscape of IoT vendors

International Electrotechnical Commission: IoT 2020: Smart and secure IoT platform

MacKinsey & CoMaking sense of Internet of Things platforms 

 

 

Stay tuned for our 5th prediction in our Eight IoT Themes for 2018.