2019 Internet Of Things 50: IoT’s Next Chapter

The need for solution providers to guide companies through IoT projects—from the procurement of hardware and sensors to the monitoring and management of new systems—is greater than ever before. Here are CRN’s picks for the 50 coolest IoT companies of the year that solution providers can look to for a leg up.

Trains with faster arrival times. Water systems with fewer disruptions. Factory machines with lower failure rates. These are just a few of the many promises of the Internet of Things, where sensors capture and send data from the physical world to computers for analysis to create valuable insights.

But the road to get there is by no means easy. It requires an ecosystem of sensors, hardware, software and security solutions working together, as well as solution providers who can play the role of a company’s trusted adviser and who know which tools to use in every situation.

For those reasons, the IoT market presents a massive opportunity for solution providers, with research firm forecasting that global spending in IoT to reach $745 billion in 2019. This includes spending on hardware, sensors and modules, installation and device services and software.

“Adoption of IoT is happening across industries, in governments, and in consumers’ daily lives," Carrie MacGillivray, vice president of IoT and mobility at IDC, said in a statement. “We are increasingly observing how data generated by connected devices is helping businesses run more efficiently, gain insight into business processes, and make real-time decisions.”

Barry Lynch, CEO of Trois-Rivières, Quebec-based systems integrator Factora, said while companies in the past have struggled to move past the proof-of-concept stage for digital transformation projects, of which IoT plays a major role, he’s now noticing a change in mind-set.

“What I’m seeing as I’m talking with various companies is very much an acceleration,” he said. “People are starting to see where it can add value.”

This growth in global IoT spending, which is estimated to push past $1 trillion by 2022, is largely driven by use cases in discrete manufacturing, process manufacturing, transportation and utilities, highlighting the ever-increasing relevance of industrial IoT solutions.

The stakes in industrial IoT are high as companies seek to connect their systems to software in the cloud, in private servers or at the edge. Dirk Didascalou, vice president of IoT at Amazon Web Services, said that’s why execution is everything for cloud service providers like his.

“I think IoT is a scale game,” Didascalou said. “That’s why we put so much effort in security, reliability and scale, because you break this once and then all the trust is gone. So for us, we build it with that mind-set from the beginning.”

Security is an especially important field when it comes to IoT. Whether it’s an internet-connected security camera at home or a hydraulic motor in an oil drilling rig, IoT is creating millions of new endpoints that can be shut down, hijacked or otherwise compromised.

Alon Levin, vice president of product management at IoT security vendor VDOO, said even within a couple of years, IoT attacks have increased and become far more sophisticated, creating opportunities for bad actors to enter the larger networks on which IoT devices reside.

“In 2018, we’ve started to see that change, where attacks are able to maintain persistence and create multi-stage attacks,” he said. “We regularly see people get into those devices and move laterally or use the devices themselves as a way of exfiltrating data, feeding it off the network through something like a printer that has a wireless hot spot.”

These compounding factors are driving global spending for IoT security to $1.9 billion in 2019, according to a forecast from research firm Gartner, which said that figure will grow to $3.1 billion in 2021. However, underlining the challenges ahead for IoT security, Gartner said that a lack of prioritization and implementation of best practices and tools is hampering potential spending by 80 percent.

These challenges and opportunities highlight that the need for solution providers to guide companies through IoT projects—from the procurement of hardware and sensors to the monitoring and management of new systems—is greater than ever before.

“The next chapter of IoT is just beginning as we see a shift from digitally enabling the physical to automating and augmenting the human experience with a connected world,” MacGillivray at IDC said.

For solution providers who are just getting started in IoT and those who already have established businesses in the field, CRN presents the 50 coolest IoT companies of the year across hardware, software, security and industrial IoT.

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