Frost & Sullivan has issued an assessment of the IoT platforms market reviewing 31 that its judges to be “true platforms … at the cutting edge of innovation and growth,” culled from a field of more than 1000.
F&S has published its assessment of the 31 platforms in a F&S Radar report Global Internet of Things (IoT) Platforms Market, 2019, available at no charge from F&S.
Of these 1000 F&S says it “deems about 400 companies to have true platform capabilities across multiple vertical markets and consumer segments.”
Of the 31 that make the cut, F&S says Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the leader in both growth and innovation “due to its extensive portfolio of products and services that enables end users and developers to develop and deploy IoT solutions for enterprises and consumers.”
It says Microsoft, IBM, Siemens, Eurotech and AT&T are investing heavily in IoT platforms as they attempt to catch up with AWS.
Over the next two to three years F&S says the focus will migrate more towards the edge and operations side of IoT, which will result in upward movement for companies such as Intel, Telit, Samsung, ARM and AT&T.
“The market has seen the emergence of a large number of behemoths who are late entrants into IoT platforms. While these companies may be lagging in adoption of their services, the potential for these companies to grow in this market is unlimited,” F&S says.
“With over 60 billion connected devices expected to be in existence globally by 2024, the potential for each of the companies on the Frost Radar is very high.”
Of the 31 F&S also singles out of mention C3IoT and Altair SmartWorks (formerly Carriots) that are “leading the industry in innovation” and Intel and Telit that are “leading in growth.”
Other platform selection guides
In July 2018 The IoT Alliance Australia (IoTAA) launched a guide to selecting an IoT platform to help governments and companies choose from the more than 400 available platforms.
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.
