16 Industrial Vendors With Cool IoT Offerings

Key Industrial IoT Vendors

Solution providers are looking to transform their own companies and drive sales around manufacturing operations as more factory floors begin to connect their machines and systems. According to research firm IDC, as the Internet of Things gains traction, manufacturing operations in 2016 was the IoT use case that saw the largest investment at $102.5 billion.

However, this means that solution providers need to look beyond traditional IT vendors at vendors that specialize in and understand operational technology – including SCADA systems and programmable logic controllers.

Here are 16 industrial vendors with cool IoT offerings that solution providers can look to for training, resources and cutting-edge products.

Schneider Electric

Schneider Electric has sought to transform its business over the past few years with a sharper focus on software and services.

The company, a manufacturer of equipment for electrical power distribution and industrial control, has built up its IoT segment through delivering open, connected solutions at the connected device, platform and on-premise central control layers. Schnieder Electric also has a robust partner program and offers its products for OEMs, systems integrators, distributors and consultants.

Siemens

Siemens is focused sharply on product design and factory automation with a significant investment in product life-cycle management software. The company's MindSphere platform is explicitly designed to connect assets at industrial plants in an automated production environment. The German company's comprehensive data hosting platform also offers data-based services such as machine tool analytics and energy analytics.

Jagannath Rao, head of data driven services at Siemens Digital Factory, told CRN that the company plans to better entrench itself in the U.S. through building out its North American channel from its existing partnerships, including with Accenture and Atos. "Our goal is simple – to scale up and get as many customers connected as possible … through building out our go-to-market channels, through systems integrators and distributors," he said.

Rockwell Automation

Milwaukee-based Rockwell Automation, which focuses on industrial automation and information solutions, has built up offerings and services in the connected enterprise to help operations managers manage and improve manufacturing and industrial processes.

The company's portfolio, which includes connected components, intelligent motor control capabilities, integrated architecture and on-machine solutions, helps drive the Industrial Internet of Things for OEMs. Now the company is building on a tight partnership with Cisco to help push its IoT agenda even further.

KMC Controls

KMC Controls touts its KMC Commander platform, which enables customers to easily connect building automation systems. The company also manufactures edge devices, which it dubs KMC Conquest, with embedded sensors, such as smart thermostats.

These tools plug into industrial environments, helping customers build automation offerings and form open and scalable systems in industrial settings.

New Paris, Ind.-based KMC Controls has been targeting the IoT channel through partnering with Dell and pairing with Intel to offer control solutions as part of Intel's IoT Solutions Alliance.

Honeywell

Honeywell has been zeroing in on the Industrial Internet of Things space by focusing on optimizing users' existing automation investments. Honeywell said it delivers the widest range of secure, ready-to-deploy technology across all elements of the industrial internet, including smart, connected assets and devices, data management and on-site control, analytics, and smart and secure collaboration.

Morristown, N.J.-based Honeywell's Tridium division has a purpose-built operating system for IoT, Niagara Framework, which connects and translates data from any device or system that manages and optimizes performance in buildings, factories or even cities. The platform contains enterprise security, analytics and professional services.

PTC

Needham, Mass.-based PTC's Internet of Things strategy revolves around its ThingWorx IoT Platform for application developers. ThingWorx supports rapid application development through the use of model-based development and mashup tools.

PTC also offers the Axeda Machine Cloud, which provides cloud-based services and software for managing connected products, as well as the Coldlight Neuron Predictive Analytics Platform to automatically analyze data, detect patterns, and send information to any application or technology.

The company in June introduced the newest component of its IoT platform -- Vuforia Studio -- which is a set of augmented reality offerings designed for the enterprise, giving partners a visual aspect to IoT.

Libelium

Libelium provides the tools that solution providers need to connect sensors on industrial IoT-enabled devices to the cloud, for applications like factory automation and automotive use cases. Libelium's portfolio includes the Meshlium, which connects sensor networks to the cloud, as well as custom hardware and firmware designs. The Redwood City, Calif.-based company also offers products on the developer side, including IoT starter kits and Waspmote, a sensor device for developers.

The company works with solution providers, systems integrators and distributors to bring its products to market.

Advantech

Advantech manufactures hardware for industrial edge solutions – including industrial computers, embedded automation computers, human machine interfaces and remote I/O modules. The company's edge intelligence servers accelerate IoT implementation by providing solutions with edge computer, software development tools, and pre-configured cloud services. Advantech also offers embedded IoT gateway and wireless IoT nodes and extension boards.

Advantech works with solution providers to bring its IoT hardware devices to market.

B-Scada

B-Scada is an IoT company that provides software and hardware offerings for monitoring real-time data in Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems that are prevalent in IoT vertical applications such as building automation, smart grid and manufacturing. The Crystal River, Fla.-based company also offers sensors and analytics tools.

B-Scada offers a program for premier and certified partners, which gives resellers, integrators and vendors benefits such as product discounts and training.

Sierra Wireless

Sierra Wireless offers a lineup of hardware, software and services features for industrial and manufacturing IoT energy solutions. The company's portfolio includes embedded wireless modules and gateway offerings as well as its IoT Acceleration platform, which integrates its hardware with managed connectivity services. Sierra Wireless also provides the reference architecture for MangOH, an open-source IoT hardware platform.

Lantronix

Lantronix manufactures gateways for systems integrators and channel partners to take advantage of in the IoT space. These intelligent gateways, including the SGX 5150, PremierWave XN and Premier Wave XC, are industrial-grade and wireless, with Wi-Fi connectivity.

Lantronix also has embedded Wi-Fi and wired offerings, like system on module single board computers, embedded device servers and SoC modules.

The company's premier partner program offers systems integrators and resellers resources and training for IoT deployments.

Aeris

Aeris is a service provider that touts itself as having the only cellular network designed and built exclusively for machines. The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company has its purpose-built AerCore connectivity platform, along with its IoT analytics platform, AerVoyance. AerVoyance provides analytics to manage and monitor IoT and M2M deployments in real time.

Aeris in 2015 launched the Neo Affiliate Program that brings IoT network connectivity services to the channel via a recurring revenue model.

Tenable

Security firm Tenable in June showed off its strength around industrial IoT with the release of its cloud-based Tenable.io platform. This platform enables manufacturers to discover and manage vulnerabilities in operational assets, including industrial control systems.

’Massive shifts in computing have left enterprises struggling to gain visibility into their exposure areas. The rise of IoT and the convergence of IT and OT are only compounding the issue,’ said Dave Cole, chief product officer at Tenable, in a statement. ’The vulnerability management tools of yesterday are falling short in providing CISOs with a complete and reliable view of the entire modern attack surface so they can take a proactive approach to managing the security challenges of today and tomorrow.’

IoTium

Santa Clara, Calif.-based IoTium, founded this year, offers a network as a service that essentially secures the connection of legacy on-site systems to cloud-based applications. The company's offering helps industrial organizations secure remote connectivity at scale through providing built-in security at every layer of the IIoT stack to secure both assets and data. The offering also contains device discovery features so that organizations can easily monitor everything on their network that is authorized to be there, as well as provide the ability to deploy edge applications, accelerating the adoption of machine learning and artificial intelligence.

CyberX

Framingham, Mass.-based CyberX is an industrial cybersecurity company, working with customers in the energy, water, manufacturing, transportation and chemical industries.

CyberX's flagship offering is its XSense platform, which is comprised of a dashboard for managing alerts so that customers have greater control of their industrial operations. The platform helps customers use machine learning and modeling to detect attacks in real time and reduce operation downtime.

The company, founded in 2012, most recently secured $9 million in Series A funding in August, led by Flint Capital.

PAS

PAS, a security firm focused on industrial control systems, recently raised $40 million as the company looks to expand its channel program for operational technology security. PAS, which provides security for industrial control systems – including distributed control systems, programmable logic controllers, turbo machinery controls, and compressor control systems – wants to broaden its sales approach and involve new systems integrators.