Microsoft deciding to retire Azure IoT Central, like previously Google IoT Core or IBM Watson IoT have done, is not indicative of the bad health of the IoT sector, quite the contrary: the number of connected devices is growing exponentially and according to data from the consulting firm McKinsey, it is stated that the IoT could generate between 5.5 B$ and 12.6 B$ by 2030 around the world. And according to the same forecasts, the total number of devices connected to the Internet of Things is on the rise, and it is estimated that it will rise to 30.9 billion units by 2025 in the world.
In short. IoT is here to stay.
So why have some tech totems like IBM, Google, SAP or Microsoft retired their IoT offerings?
According to Google,
“Since launching IoT Core, it has become clear that our customers’ needs could be better served by our network of partners that specialize in IoT applications and services”.
This is the critical part, I think. IoT is not easily commoditized and needs IoT experts to build unique products and business models. Products to gain a competitive advantage, opening new markets and in full control of the IoT technology stack.
At Biotz we are seeing a higher sophistication of the IoT projects we undertake, in the form of companies that have deeply integrated IoT within their core business, and others that make heavy use of data analytics to improve their decision making. These types of companies want to rely on a tech stack they control, on many occasions deploying the solution in their own infrastructure, and having total ownership over their product roadmap and development.
Certainly, an IoT platform is not a trivial piece of software to build, maintain and evolve. Every use case requires a different setup, and different final applications to serve heterogeneous users.
We think that there are some aspects of the IoT value chain that are best to delegate to a third party, and others (namely, the fully customized final applications) that businesses should have a tight control over.
The underlying IoT functionality (IoT Platform) like device data ingestion and remote actioning machinery, the personalized alerts, analytics and dashboards, and the tech related stuff like security, scalability, protocols, brokers, messaging and so on, are always worth buying to a third-party if software is not your company’s core business
As for the final application, which will need the features that sets apart your business from the rest, and also automates some aspects of your core business, in our experience some clients prefer to have an in-house team that can build them. Others rely on our HOP platform (Open source license) and we build it for them, all thanks to a developer API that leverages data from the IoT platform.
In summary, whereas you want to increase your productivity by automating some processes, or to build new business models, look for solutions that give you control, high flexibility, simple start-up, easier and faster go-to-market, and the possibility of creating unique/singular solutions.
