IDC MarketScape Report Names Cisco a Leader in Worldwide IoT Platforms

More than a decade ago, Cisco recognized that every device and every thing would eventually be connected. From vehicles to city lights to healthcare devices – secure, ubiquitous connectivity would enable companies to deliver new services that enhance their customers’ experiences and drive new revenue channels. And over time, Cisco has become the global leader in securely networking and connecting ‘things’.  Today, our portfolio of IoT Networking supplies the foundational backbone for the Internet of Things for thousands of companies across Industrial, Enterprise and Public Sectors.  Ensuring the health and management of those connections, Cisco Jasper Control Center has become the world’s largest automated IoT connectivity management platform, with over 15,000 companies connecting more than 66M things today – with millions more added every month.

We’ve also championed the fact that – while connectivity is critical – businesses must also be able to extract, compute, and move the data generated by all of these connected things.  To ensure they get the maximum business value from their IoT data, we have extended the Cisco IoT Platform with Cisco Kinetic, IoT Threat Defense, Traffic Segmentation, Threat Protection and Smart Security, IOx for edge computing, a library of microservices and much more. This enables companies to securely unlock their data and put it to work for them. And the results our customers are seeing across industries are incredible.

The Overall Leader in IoT Strategy

Today we’re honored to share that – in recognition of our IoT vision and what we’ve accomplished – IDC, one of the leading global market intelligence firms, has recognized Cisco as a leader in its IoT platform market landscape report, “IDC MarketScape: Worldwide IoT Platforms (Device and Network Connectivity Providers) 2018 Vendor Assessment.” As you’ll see in the IDC MarketScape graphic below, Cisco was also recognized as the overall leader in IoT strategy.

In addition to citing Cisco’s strengths both in IoT strategy and the overall capabilities of our IoT platform, the report also highlights Cisco’s strong thought leadership within the IoT ecosystem. The IDC report also cites that customers view Cisco as a dedicated partner in helping them monetize their IoT strategy – something we’re particularly proud of and that we work hard to achieve through our consultative approach to driving IoT success.

This report is gratifying validation of our leadership in the IoT market and our holistic IoT strategy.  For those of you we don’t already work with, let me share some additional detail on both our overall Internet of Things strategy as well as our solutions.

Your Network and Security Partner is Also Your IoT Data Partner

Cisco is more than your network and security partner – we are also your IoT data partner. We understand what it takes to get maximum value from your data, and to manage out the complexity of doing so. As a result, we give you complete control over the management, exchange and use of your data.

“Getting maximum value from your IoT data” is a deceptively simple phrase, but in reality, it’s extraordinarily difficult.

Every device you connect will spit out an overwhelming flood of new data – some of which is valuable, some of which isn’t – and the definition of valuable will change over time

The data needs to be transformed into a usable format

That data then needs to get from many things to many apps across highly distributed environments, inside and outside your enterprise, in private and public clouds

Data needs to be processed everywhere at the edge, in the network, in the data center and in the cloud to reduce latency and increase efficiency

Use cases will be infinitely dynamic and specific to the changing needs of data owners and relationships with those who put that data to work for the business.

You’ll need to enable all this without compromise and with full visibility & control over data ownership, privacy, sovereignty, security.

Cisco eliminates that complexity with an integrated IoT platform that provides the end-to-end capabilities needed to get maximum value from your data:

Connect – Securely and reliably connect devices around the world

Extract – Extract data from all of its sources, and make it usable.

Compute – Compute data at the edge to enable fast decisions at the point of action.

Move – Get the right data to the right applications at the right time.

The Need for IoT Data Control

Cisco IoT brings all of this together by delivering an integrated platform that provides comprehensive network and device connectivity while giving businesses what they need to extract, compute and move their IoT data:

It starts with Cisco’s intent-based IoT network, industrialized networking technologies that support nearly all access technologies: WiFi, Cellular, LoRa, Mesh, Ethernet and more.

Then Cisco Jasper Control Center provides the real-time visibility and automated control to ensure those connections stay healthy.

Cisco Kinetic then enables IoT data to be captured, converted into a usable format to which business rules can be applied, processed at the edge for immediate decisions, and delivered to the right place at the right time.

The Cisco IOx application environment enables seamless support for edge and fog computing throughout the network and beyond.

Cisco Advanced Services provides expert support in the development of sophisticated microservices and implementation capabilities to drive business outcomes.

To ensure security throughout the network and data flow, Cisco Security solutions such as IoT Threat Defense have been integrated.

All this while integrated seamlessly with other required elements of your IoT technology deployment – sensors, public cloud systems, applications and analytics technologies.

In addition to all the Cisco products and services, we’ve been at the forefront of the latest technologies through Cisco Investments.  We’ve invested in companies such as Actility, Kespry, AIMotive, PubNub and Veniam that are at the forefront of their respected sectors.  Working closely with startups such as these has kept us close to some of newest innovations.

Cisco IoT has learned from over a decade of experience as the IoT leader that connecting your things is just the beginning. You need to optimize your IoT data to create true business value, which can only be achieved with complete control of your IoT data and the programmatic sharing of it with all apps that can turn that data into value.

Bottom line, data is your company’s most valuable asset. If you don’t optimize, monetize and control your IoT data – someone else will.

You can download and share the complete report here – IDC MarketScape: Worldwide IoT Platforms (Device and Network Connectivity Providers) 2018 Vendor Assessment.

SOURCE: “IDC MarketScape: Worldwide IoT Platforms (Device and Network Connectivity Providers) 2018 Vendor Assessment”, by Carrie MacGillivray and Stacey Crook, January 2018 IDC #US43434417

IDC MarketScape vendor analysis model is designed to provide an overview of the competitive fitness of ICT suppliers in a given market.  The research methodology utilizes a rigorous scoring methodology based on both qualitative and quantitative criteria that results in a single graphical illustration of each vendor’s position within a given market. The Capabilities score measures vendor product, go-to-market and business execution in the short-term. The Strategy score measures alignment of vendor strategies with customer requirements in a 3-5-year timeframe. Vendor market share is represented by the size of the circles. Vendor year-over-year growth rate relative to the given market is indicated by a plus, neutral or minus next to the vendor name.