IoT platform markets, private LPWA without a license and advanced technology will face obstacles in 2020, according to ABI Research.
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ABI Research has issued a report on Monday describing the top technological trends to keep an eye on in 2020. New and evolving technological trends are constantly permeating the company, but the report identifies trends that will not actually deliver.
Technologies such as continuous intelligence, 5G implementation in Massive Machine Type Communication (mMTC) and the shared economy will make progress in 2020, but the same cannot be said for the Internet of Things (IoT) platform market, unlicensed low-power ownership wide-area (LPWA) networks and edge technology, the report found.
SEE: Top 10 IT trends of the past 20 years (TechRepublic)
The report identified 54 technology trends to monitor in 2020 – 35 trends that will determine the technology market and 19 that will not be realized.
“After a tumultuous 2019 that was accompanied by many challenges, both integral to technology markets and derived from global market dynamics, 2020 appears to be just as challenging,” said Stuart Carlaw, chief research officer at ABI Research, in the press release.
3 trends fall in 2020
1. The IoT platform market
IoT technology has spread the company and will continue in 2020: Gartner predicted that 20.4 billion IoT devices will be in use by the end of 2020. With so many IoT platform vendors on the market, industry experts have long predicted that vendors will begin to consolidate, with large companies ending partnerships with small-scale IoT vendors and integrating IoT production into their own operations.
However, the report showed that the idea of ​​consolidation is pushed further into the future, as new suppliers will inevitably enter the market.
“For years there have been predictions that the IoT platform vendor market will begin to consolidate, and it just won’t happen,” said Dan Shey, vice president of enabling platforms at ABI Research, in the release. “The simple reason is that there are more than 100 companies that offer device-to-cloud IoT platform services and for everyone being taken over, there are always new ones coming to market.”
2. Own LPWA without license does not merge with licensed open standards
Standard 5G and LTE wireless network technologies are commercialized on a large scale due to their high reliability, low latency and long-term availability. Although large LPWA players such as Orange, KPN, SoftBank and Sigfox have seen some success in areas such as emergency communication, the combination of standard and unlicensed own networks is far in the future, according to the report.
“The two cannot be reconciled at the level of standards, for the premium that mobile commands generate from the cost of its license and the control that the owners have over their spectrum blocks, thereby providing IoT with a safe, managed, service-based guarantee customers, “said Adarsh ​​Krishnan, M2M, IoT and IoE, chief analyst at ABI Research, in the release.
3. Edge will not catch up with the cloud
Although many organizations use edge computing to handle workloads, it does not mean the cloud is out, the report said.
“The accelerated growth of edge technology and the intelligent paradigm of the devices created one of the biggest misconceptions in the industry: edge technology can cannibalize cloud technology,” said M2M, IoT & IoE analyst Kateryna Dubrova in the release. “In fact, we will see a rapid development of edge-cloud-fog continuum in the future, with technology complementing rather than cannibalizing.”
Although these three trends will not gain ground in the new year, the report did identify a few that will.
3 trends that will grow in 2020
1. Continuous intelligence
Continuous intelligence, or the ability to analyze and gain insights from IoT data, has grown with the release of streaming analysis and streaming technologies, the report found. This trend will continue in 2020 as more organizations gain value from real-time insights.
“The concept of continuous intelligence will consolidate in the IoT analysis market, making more advanced analyzes possible in almost real-time,” Dubrovain said in the release. “ABI Research predicts greater acceptance of CI technologies, so that IoT data analyzes go beyond the traditional operational level (maintenance and control), but we will also see a greater impact on strategic planning and organizational change.”
2. mMTC will only support a handful of chipset manufacturers
The implementation of 5G started in 2019 and will reach new performance levels in 2020, especially with release 16, the report found.
Release 15 supported mobile broadband, ultra-reliable communication with low latency and mMTC; Release 16 will improve that support and pave the way for standards in connected cars, smart factories and more, Cho Mu-Hyun reported on ZDNet.
With mMTC capabilities, up to 1 million devices per square kilometer can be connected in the long term, resulting in large, dense wireless sensor networks. With the power that mMTC presents, chipset manufacturers want to jump on board; however, there are few who will deliver, the report showed.
“This resulting race saw 17 baseband suppliers emerge, but only four different currently deliver most of the hundreds of LTE-M and NB-IoT products that are now available. HiSilicon, MediaTek, Qualcomm and RDA (UNISOC) dominate”, said Jamie Moss, M2M, IoT & IoE research director at ABI Research, in the release.
“And this situation will only get worse if we evolve to release 16 and the full coexistence of LTE-M and NB-IoT with 5G NR, that is, the ‘official’ start of the mMTC market. Nothing succeeds so successfully and only those with strong early acceptance, regardless of the slow initial sale, will be there to enjoy the coming years, “she added.
3. China will stimulate the sharing economy 2.0
The sharing economy is defined as “a peer-to-peer activity of acquiring, providing or sharing access to goods and services,” said Bob Violino of ZDNet. Common examples of the sharing economy are Uber and Airbnb, which are part of the sharing economy 1.0. However, a new wave of the sharing economy is forecast for 2020, according to the report, which is led by China.
“China is showing the world what the next phase of the sharing economy will look like: shared power banks,” Shey said in the release. “The newer applications in the more ‘connected’ version of the sharing economy will continue to grow globally, albeit at a more measured pace than in China.”
For more information, view the full list of technology trends from ABI Research and the 5 emerging technologies that are worth investing in in TechRepublic in 2020.
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