The IoT Alliance Australia (IoTAA) has launched a guide to selecting an IoT platform to help governments and companies choose from the more than 400 available platforms.
IoTAA chairman, John Stanton, said the guideline— created by IoTAA’s Platforms and Interoperability Workstream chaired by Geof Heydon — had been formulated to give concise and relevant guidance to all Australian organisations seeking to adopt IoT technologies.
“The Guideline aims to provide a ‘running start’ for buyers to select between platforms so they can rapidly realise the potential of IoT in their product and service offerings to customers and in their internal business operations,” Stanton said.
Heydon said the guideline drew on experience gleaned from early IoT projects, which showed the risk of failing to recognise the long-term implications of adopting IoT, and therefore overlooking key requirements when selecting an IoT platform.
“The guideline walks through the typical four phases of IoT projects, from relatively simple projects designed to improve productivity, through to sophisticated systems that leverage data and analysis to guide future business decisions,” Heydon said.
IOTAA says the guideline provides advice on a range of criteria that come into play when selecting an IoT platform, including interoperability between different platforms.
The workstream is now developing a specific smart city focused set of guidelines for release later in the year, and IoTAA said platform interoperability was vital to ensuring that the promised benefits of a smart city environment could be realised.
“Interoperability is also key to avoiding vendor ‘lock in’ which risks leaving investments stranded and/or forcing companies to pay more than necessary for future investments,” IoTAA said.
“The guideline also provides advice on data sharing, privacy protection and system security – all vital elements to consider when making platform acquisition decisions.”
Platform choice surges 25 percent in 12 months
The guideline does not provide information on any specific IoT platforms, and there is plenty of choice. The number of IoT platforms on the market has surged 25 percent in just 12 months and now stands at 450, according to German IoT market research firm IoT Analytics.
IoT Analytics said platforms came from 40 countries, but more than half of the companies in the list were headquartered in the US.
The research firm said the majority of platforms had a core focus on application enablement (92 percent) and only three percent offered IoT specific cloud storage (IaaS). More than 30 of the companies included in the 2016 edition have either gone out of business or have been acquired.
Forrester evaluates IoT platforms
Forrester Research has identified the 11 most significant in its November 2016 Forrester Wave report: IoT Software Platforms, which evaluated the IoT platforms according to 25 criteria. Those platforms are: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Ayla Networks, Cisco Jasper, Exosite, General Electric (GE), IBM, LogMeIn, Microsoft, PTC, SAP and Zebra Technologies.
UK company Beecham Research, in partnership with UK-based IoT Global Network — itself a platform that claims to serve as a source of information for decision makers who deal with IoT — has produced IoT Pilot, a free online tool that uses “25 key indicators against which to independently evaluate the performance of IoT platforms.”
It claims to “provide all enterprises looking to adopt an IoT platform solution with an assessment of these indicators within five key groupings,” and to offer “a unique and more informed understanding of the IoT platform landscape.”
US company Postscapes, an online resource for information about IoT, also offers a searchable database of “IoT cloud platforms” that runs to about 120. It claims users can narrow down their platform requirements (end-to-end, open source and so on), filter based on feature sets, API, architecture, apps and pricing, and make comparisons based on platform focus (analytics, mobile, device integrations).
Also IoT research firm Machnation has produced a free whitepaper Five requirements of a leading IoT edge platform that identifies what, in Machination’s view, are five capabilities needed for an IoT edge platform.
