Here Are IDC's 5 Top Worldwide IoT Platform Vendor 'Leaders'

Top Platforms For The Internet of Things

As more vendors put Internet of Things platforms on the market, research firm IDC has pinpointed the "leaders" in the space.

According to IDC, an IoT platform is a commercial software product that combines connectivity capabilities, management of IoT endpoints, ingestion of data, visualization tools and IoT apps. The vendors listed in IDC's study needed to have a commercial platform by December 2016, offer horizontally appropriate capabilities that could sell into multiple verticals and provide three customers references that had been using the product for six months or more.

Here are IDC's five worldwide Internet of Things platform vendor "leaders."

AWS

AWS was listed by IDC as an IoT platform leader. Amazon Web Services' flagship IoT managed cloud platform lets connected devices securely interact with cloud applications and other devices. The platform can support billions of devices and makes it easy to use AWS services like AWS Lambda, Amazon Kinesis, Amazon S3 and Amazon Machine Learning to build IoT applications that gather, process, analyze and act on data generated by connected devices without having to manage any infrastructure.

GE Digital

IDC said GE had invested heavily in IoT through its platform, Predix, which is now deployed in its customers' businesses. GE was named a platform "leader" in part because of its large portfolio of analytics tools, strong security model and its own "deep well of industrial expertise" for industrial IoT applications.

The Boston, Mass.-based company provides IoT solutions to customers in various industries, including oil and gas, power and utility, chemical and healthcare, and has over 40 IoT service offerings.

IBM Watson

According to IDC, IBM's IoT Watson platform helps companies improve operational performance and lowers costs, creates new products and business models, and drives engagement and customer experience.

The report said IBM has further invested in innovative technologies that provide value to partners "beyond a standard IoT platform" – such as NodeRed, for rapidly building IoT applications and blockchain for supply management use cases.

Microsoft

IDC also highlighted Microsoft on its list of the top platform vendors. Microsoft's Azure IoT Suite, unveiled in 2015, was built to capture the data generated by connected "things," integrate the flow of that data and turn it into usable, actionable information. The cloud services aim to help customers monitor assets to improve efficiencies, drive operational performance and use advanced data analytics. Microsoft says the suite was designed to integrate with customers' existing processes, devices and systems, meaning they can jump on the Microsoft bandwagon no matter how far along in their IoT adoption plans they are.

PTC

IDC said that PTC's IoT platform, ThingWorx, offers one of the "more robust application enablement platforms available today," to help developers structure their data in a way that makes sense for IoT use cases. These prebuilt applications include ThingWorx Navigate, Manufacturing Apps, and Asset Advisor.

IDC also praised the fact that PTC offers ThingWorx through numerous delivery models and does not have allegiance to any one cloud platform, making it more flexible for customers. PTC has also made many investments in industrial IoT technology to better help customers in that space, said IDC.