In the world of Internet of Things (IoT) management, partnerships and collaborations between device management vendors are accelerating at a rapid rate, particularly as standardization has begun to play a bigger role in device management services. Standardization among connected devices using the LwM2M (low-power, wide-area) standard has sped the process. The standard, which was first adopted by telecommunications companies, has now also been embraced by the module, chipset, and gateway suppliers.
As a result of this growth and expansion, global technology intelligence firm ABI Research has forecast that IoT device management services market will top $36.8 billion in revenues by 2026.
"Implementing a common standard such as LwM2M can complicate a device management vendor's product differentiation strategy, but standards do address customer reservations of 'lock-in' to a proprietary platform," said Abdullah Haider, IoT Network and Services Research Analyst at ABI Research.
Partnerships are expected to continue to expand, with device management vendors collaborating with system integrators (SIs) who build end-to-end solutions. Device management suppliers can also partner with other players in the value chain.
"Companies recognize that a strategic partnership can facilitate both sales and product support channels,” noted Haider. “Co-operating with another vendor's device management service is beneficial for a cloud hyper-scaler selling data storage and analytics, and for a Mobile Network Operator (MNO) selling connectivity or application enablement services as IoT device management platforms integrate with these other systems.”
ABI Research predicts that device management vendors from large hyper-scalers, (such as AWS and Microsoft Azure), established incumbent players (such as Eurotech, Telit and Sierra Wireless), MNOs (such as Vodafone, Verizon, and Deutsche Telekom) and startups (EdgeIQ, Memfault, and 1nce) will all be looking to disrupt the IoT device management ecosystem.
"One key insight is that while competition breeds commoditization, companies are still keen to differentiate their device management services,” said Haider. “Often this entails providing security services like device attestation, and mutual authentication while other players are considering remote hardware configurability in application segments like asset tracking, telematics, and condition-based monitoring. In general, more and more suppliers are adding device management services to differentiate their IoT solution suite and capture more IoT solution revenues.”
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Edited by
Erik Linask
