How IoT Vendors Are Creating New Routes To Market

IoT maturity is generally viewed in three layers, called the DEVICE LAYER, the MIDDLEWARE LAYER and the APPLICATION LAYER. These three layers are fairly well accepted as defining the technological landscape of IoT.

The DEVICE LAYER is the ‘connected things’. The MIDDLEWARE LAYER is the glue that locks the applications to the devices and the data. The Application Enablement Platform (or AEP) is here to allow a developer to rapidly develop and deploy an IoT application. Finally we’ve got the APPLICATION LAYER. This layer is where the data analytics, the AI vendors and the application developers sit.

Looking at IoT technology layers, and the roles that vendors are playing in each layer, it’s easy to assume that the application layer of IoT is the one that holds the most interest for us as channel professionals, as that’s where the end customer sees the value. But we shouldn’t ignore middleware vendors – nor in fact connectivity vendors - as drivers of route to market change also. Perhaps just as much as vendors in the application and analytics layer.

We can actually group up technology vendors into three categories, when it comes to driving new routes to market around IoT, as follows:

• CATEGORY 1

Device manufacturers creating connectivity applications and services routes to market

• CATEGORY 2

Connectivity and middleware platform vendors, building developer ecosystems

• CATEGORY 3

Big data analytics and application vendors, leveraging existing routes to market

New routes to market are being defined by connectivity and middleware vendors, as much as by application and analytics vendors. Let’s take a couple of examples.

A great example of CATEGORY 1 vendor is Johnson Controls, who make devices that manage power, heating, ventilation and many other functions. This is a business with 170,000 employees and 50 billion dollars in revenues, so larger than Oracle but smaller than Microsoft. And Johnson Controls is absolutely in the IoT world as a device manufacturer creating connectivity applications, building services routes to market. Johnson Controls has an IoT partner program that is in effect turning device installers into Smart Building service specialists. In July this year Johnson Controls announced a partnership with Microsoft around industrial thermostats, with Microsoft providing the analytics layer. Johnson controls is bringing a whole new category of channel partner into the technology ecosystem, companies which were previously looked at as lower-value device installers.

A great example of CATEGORY 2 vendors is the carriers, like AT&T and Verizon. Carriers are important for two reasons. One is that they can run the networks that connect the devices in the connectivity layer. The second reason is that these carriers have relationships with large and small enterprises, and potentially can build middleware capabilities to aggregate and process IoT data.

During 2015 AT&T launched the M2X Data Service which is a developer suite for IoT solutions. And earlier this year AT&T announced integration of M2X with IBM’s developer platform Bluemix. AT&T operate a partner program called M2X Connect, which is starting to engage developers and consultants who work with larger enterprises to build IoT connected solutions.

In CATEGORY 3 we see how companies like IBM, SAP and Google are creating customer value in the application and analytics layer, transforming their legacy routes to market. We also see whole new partner ecosystems emerging in the application and analytics layer as specialist developers and system integrators start to focus on vertical markets to deliver software solutions that leverage IoT data.

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