The Future of Internet of Things, Part 2: Beyond Endpoints and Connectivity to Ecosystems and Intelligence

In this IDC Market Perspective, Internet of Things (IoT) is moving rapidly in relevance away from the initial phase of excitement and hype built around the emergence of new endpoints and connectivity back to the network. More so, value is shifting away from mere hardware, radios, and connectivity aspects to other areas in the value chain. The biggest area of value add today is in the field of IoT platforms, including both connectivity and management platforms that typically sit close to the endpoints deployed within an enterprise. Another area is analytics platforms that can sit either on the enterprise premise or deeper in the network, possibly even in the public cloud. "IoT platforms need to be interoperable across the value chain because enterprises may mix and match platforms at an enterprise level or have different business units deploy different platforms for specific use cases and applications," says Shiv Putcha, contributing analyst, IDC Asia/Pacific. "No one platform or one vendor will be able to offer end-to-end solutions," he adds.