Device management services for IoT are expected to generate revenues of $20.5 billion by 2023, according to new report released by ABI Research.
ABI Research’s latest report, Device Management Services for the Edge-Centric IoT, forecasts that IoT device management services – which include device provisioning, software and firmware updates, and device monitoring – will be a necessary component of any significant IoT solution moving forward, with 70% of revenues being generated within the industrial, automotive, and telematics verticals.
“As IoT solutions continue to shift toward performing more processing and computing at the edge, devices need to constantly be updated to maintain solution security and improve overall analytics solution value,” commented Ryan Harbison, research analyst at ABI Research. “If a device is not able to be updated, its long-term value ceases.”
As a result, he noted, operations teams need central tools such as device management solutions to enable efficient remote maintenance. With potentially hundreds or thousands of devices in a solution, it is simply not feasible to fix and update devices after they are deployed,” Harbison noted.
As a percentage of overall device and application platform revenues, device management will remain relatively constant throughout the forecast period. The value of these services will continue to be seen by providers and end users as a necessary component of any end-to-end IoT solution.
Commoditization of device management
However, there is and will continue to be a commoditization of device management services, driven by competition among existing service providers, the growth of standards in the market, and new device management solutions from existing cloud providers such as Google, AWS, and Microsoft.
Harbison said while device management commoditization is happening to some extent, value can still be extracted by vendors who integrate them with other components of the IoT value chain to create a differentiated solution that drives value for both end-users and providers.
He said the real value in device management solutions is when they are used to enhance performance in some other area of the IoT ecosystem, such as on the device (e.g. Telit, Sierra Wireless, Cradlepoint, or Eurotech) or as part of a larger platform offering (e.g. Bosch, Mentor Graphic, or Wind River).
“The companies that are succeeding in this space are not pure-play device management providers, but are rather those that integrate their DM offerings with other IoT solution components to drive differentiated value for the IoT market as a whole,” concluded Harbison.