2025 in Review: From Calamity, to Promise and Peril

The year began in beaten down mode with industry analysts reporting on shrinking IoT businesses and ‘calamitous’ exits. In the first case, Germany’s Software AG was the culprit for divesting its Cumolocity industrial IoT interests. A few days later, U-blox announced that it could not find a buyer for its cellular IoT business and would therefore shut down the entity. Citing several other corporate exits, LightReading positioned this as the latest IoT calamity to hit the industry.  

Matters did improve over the course of the year, aided by Vodafone’s ambitions to ‘hyperscale’ IoT and examples of making IoT more accessible via generative AI tools. While there are upsides to these developments, they raise concerns about IoT vulnerabilities. As we will see though other industry developments over 2025, there is always a flip side to the success that comes from economy-wide adoption of IoT.

IoT solution providers lead the way

In 2007, I began monitoring corporate initiatives in the IoT industry. In those days, mobile network operators (MNOs) were the predominant actors as the industry sought new markets for growth. The roughly fifty initiatives occurring in 2025 highlight the importance of solution providers. This is a sign of the importance of delivering value by solving everyday business challenges. Solution providers encompass a wide range of organizations, including entities such as AWS IoT, Siemens and Microsoft, and PTC. 

‘Solutions’ map to the upper layers of the IoT stack. Below these are the industry layers that deal with ‘connectivity’ and ‘connected devices.’ Connectivity shows up in the form of MNO, MVNO (virtual), LPNO (low power), and satellite connectivity providers. A continuing development in 2025 is the rapprochement between cellular and satellite industries. This was best expressed by a policy executive who remarked that it was now not uncommon to come across satellite industry representatives in meetings at the GSMA’s offices. 

Underpinning solutions, the coverage aspect of connectivity continues to matter for the industry. A few examples are: Vodafone’s partnership with Mobily to expand the former’s Saudi Arabian footprint; SingTel addressing global IoT deployments by allying with FloLive; and, Verizon adding SingTel and Skylo partnerships for global IoT. 

Working Across the IoT Industry Chain 

Connectivity partnerships – one MNO partnering with another MNO from a different geographic region - are a form of in-segment or horizontal industry initiative. However, effective IoT spans the industry chain because several elements are essential for a complete solution. One way to visualize this is by studying cross-industry connections. For 2025, these amounted to over 60% of the initiatives. Solution Providers, for example, are a good example of cross-segment reach. In addition to standalone solution provider initiatives (4), organizations in this segment partnered with other solution providers (4), MNOs (5), vendors (4), and investors (4). 

Vendors Unlock New Industry Segments 

The third-ranking group in the industry map is vendors. Many of their initiatives focused on connected devices and capability enhancements. Examples include G+D launching a credit card sized IoT tracker for shipping applications and Sequans using the acquisition route to boost its RedCap activities. 

Across the industry, the topic of Edge IoT continues to capture attention. Qualcomm was most consistent in illustrating how this dynamic is playing out. Its corporate initiatives included the acquisition of Edge Impulse with an emphasis on AI and IoT capabilities. Qualcomm then established an AI and IoT engineering center in Abu Dhabi before acquiring Arduino to improve developers’ access to edge computing and AI. 

Governments’ Growing Role in IoT 

With IoT becoming more central to the economy, government will have an increasingly important influence on the market. Three developments illustrate trends for the future. Firstly, European regulators approved a unified framework for non-cellular satellite IoT, overcoming years of patchwork regulation. Middle East regulators are likely to follow. 

In India, there are plans to develop an IoT-ready UPI (universal payments infrastructure) system to automate payment transactions through smart devices and not just phones. This would enable UPI payments through smart devices like TVs, fridges, washing machines, cars, and smart watches, among others. 

Finally, the USA will require U.S. Cyber Trust Mark labeling on all federally procured connected devices after January 4, 2027. The requirement that connected devices meet baseline cybersecurity standards (secure software updates, data protection measures, and vulnerability reporting mechanisms) will have spillover effects into the wider IoT market. 

Promise and Peril 

Towards the year end, Vodafone and 1NCE initiatives drew attention to much greater promise for the IoT came. In the case of Vodafone, its Americas Managing Director, Dennis Nikles, described plans to act on Vodafone’s hyperscaler ambition for IoT. This will involve a shift from scale to hyperscale (a topic I have covered in the past), partnering (in place of competing), and simplification (to cut complexity and costs) as a strategy. 

The second development, addressing the importance of moving beyond ‘connectivity’ as a value proposition came from 1NCE’s launch of its ‘Fixers’ line of business. This aims to expand beyond software and connectivity by leveraging implementation experience from over 27,000 customers. ‘Fixers’ will provide advisory services on building better IoT solutions, driving efficient usage of existing intelligent products, and debugging technical faults. 

With IoT devices and systems becoming more prevalent, value creation opportunities multiply as does the prospect for peril. Two stories illustrate grounds for concern. The first involves French authorities arresting two crew members of a passenger ferry. They are suspected of infecting the ship with malware with the possibility of remotely controlling the vessel. 

In the second story, Andrej Karpathy, a cofounder of OpenAI, experimented to see if Claude Code could get into his home automation system. His prompt led Claude Code to find his Lutron controllers on the local Wi-Fi network (check for open ports, connect, get metadata, and identify devices and their firmware). There followed an Internet search for the PDF for his system and then instructions on what button to press to pair and get necessary certificates. It then connected to the system and found all his home devices (lights, shades, HVAC temperature control, motion sensors etc.). The routine then ran checks by turning his kitchen lights on and off. 

Prospects for 2026 

Industry developments over the course of 2025 point to an evolution in industry mindset, with larger organizations addressing new market and business growth opportunities. These go beyond connections and connectivity as IoT meshes with complementary technologies such as AI, digital twins, data with meaning, and payments. As combinations of these technologies work their way into industry and public infrastructure, there remain questions about how the IoT industry will deal with adversity arising from malicious actors to accidental engineers over-relying on generative AI. There must be sources of opportunity for value added propositions targeting users and infrastructure via data protection, security, and trustworthiness propositions.

 

Telecoms, Transformers, and Transportation

There is a common challenge that affects telecommunications, transportation, and now, the application of transformer technologies in AI systems. Telecommunications systems consist of multiple mobile networks and service providers. In many countries, there can be a handful of competing network operators, their direct-to-user service-provider arms, and multiple indirect channels in the form of (mobile) virtual network operators (MVNOs). 

One aspect of the value in this arrangement is that users of all providers can communicate with one another. This was not always the case. In the past, each operator aimed to keep customers on their network. Examples include SMS messaging during the USA in the late ‘90s, and walled garden services in the mobile internet era. There is a similar dynamic in the AI domain with large language model (LLM) providers attempting to bond consumers to their offerings. 

A $300bn Market for Telco-APIs

How much of the opportunity will mobile network operators capture? 

The business opportunity to access mobile network capabilities via application programming interfaces (APIs was one of the top stories at MWC 2024. Valued at $300 billion by McKinsey, the management consultancy, the scale of opportunity positions APIs as a vehicle to move the industry’s revenue dial materially.

However, the opportunity will be complex to realize. From this GSMA webinar, it was evident that business model and monetization frameworks are a work in progress. In addition, market realization depends on a multi-party service delivery chain; critical elements to the telco API ecosystem reside outside of mobile network operators’ (MNOs) control. Finally, the mobile industry’s focus on API monetization and revenues puts the sector at risk of overlooking wider considerations and key market-development levers. 

Where the IoT Market is Heading

I delivered a presentation some weeks back at an online conference for the managed-services industry. My talk was about the implications of IoT for digital transformation [1]. To prepare for the presentation, I began by looking back over the past decade of market developments, joining a sequence of past and present developments to see into the future of IoT. This exercise provided useful insights into the evolving pattern of customer needs, consequences for where the market is heading and, implications for strategy and business innovation.

2019 in Review: A changed IoT landscape

The turn of the year has triggered many people to reflect on what they were doing 10 years ago. With that in mind, I looked through my tracker of M2M and IoT corporate initiatives to see what has changed and what we might learn about the future. The main categories of initiative include the following: technology innovation, market entry/expansion, partnering, acquisitions/investments, distributor agreements, product/service innovation, business reorganization and outsourcing.

A more tightly knit IoT value-chain 

A snapshot of the 2009 industry covers a relatively well defined mobile-industry ecosystem. This largely centered on mobile operator initiatives, driven by leading operators and supported by GSMA efforts to develop a new market for the mobile ecosystem.

Mobile IoT and Adjacent Industries

How time flies! Over 10 years ago, I was part of a GSMA strategy team that looked at new growth markets for the mobile industry. Our report – entitled ‘Embedded Mobile: M2M and Beyond’ – identified opportunities for growth in adjacent industries. This would need the GSMA to promote the collective interests of the mobile industry in several ways. One recommendation was to work with supply-side partners. This would lower the barriers to adoption of mobile in non-mobile industries.

A second recommendation focused on stimulating demand by fostering a dialog with non-mobile industries. Besides highlighting the value of connecting assets, it would provide a channel to feed user needs back into the mobile eco-system.

In the aftermath of the 2008 financial crash, the GSMA’s initiative survived and thrived. Soon, senior executives from the automotive and pharmaceuticals sectors became keynote speakers at Mobile World Congress (MWC). And, the composition of MWC attendees changed with an influx from non-mobile industry sectors.

Why does this history matter now?

Looking up the IoT Value Chain

People are so preoccupied with everyday tasks that they often miss out on what is around them.

Walking down the street, how often do you catch people looking up at the features of old buildings or roof-level signage? The same is true in business life. Let’s consider how this plays out in the IoT market.

Recently, I heard a telco executive explain why mobile network operators (MNOs) focus on connectivity. He pointed to two factors. One is that connections and data connectivity are straightforward things to measure, with a well-established legacy from mobile phone sales. In effect, businesses manage what they can measure. The second is that it is easy to look down at the network from the MNO’s vantage point in the IoT technology stack. It takes an effort to lift one’s head and look up. That’s much like missing out on the architectural features and art work when we walk head-down (even without the excuse of a smartphone) along a street.

Occasionally, however, it makes sense to look up, not just to appreciate your surroundings but also to get a sense of whether the world is changing and how you might need to adapt.

Rumelt on 3G: Lessons for 5G and IoT

The consultancy McKinsey recently republished a 2007 interview with Richard Rumelt [1], professor of strategy at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management. Rumelt opened his commentary on strategy by noting that most corporate strategic plans have little to do with strategy. Instead, they typically end up being “three-year or five-year rolling resource budgets and some sort of market share projection”.

What senior managers want out of the strategy process, according to Rumelt, is a pathway to substantially higher performance. That can happen in one of two ways. A firm can either invent its way to success or, it can quickly and skillfully exploit some change in the environment. Examples of such change include technology, consumer taste, resource price or competitive behavior factors.

The telecoms industry finds itself at the intersection of many such changes. On the supply side, the arrival of 5G networks and the standardization of low-power IoT devices provide two industry transition opportunities. These developments will usher in new service concepts and business opportunities.

2018 in Review: IoT puzzle-pieces falling into place

Compared to previous years, the pace of corporate activity in the IoT arena has settled down. This is to be expected in a maturing market cycle. This impression may be at variance with wider industry sentiment where the use of AI/Blockchain/IoT/Machine Learning labelling continues to sensationalize.

As a sign of IoT market reality, the opening event of 2018 dealt with the commercial reality. It took the form of Telefonica O2 withdrawing from the smart home market through the closure of O2 Smart Home. The year ended with a couple of more promising events for the mobile and IoT industries. I’ll touch on these later.

Most activity was concentrated among three groups: technology vendors; network operators (mobile, low-power and virtual); and, platform providers.

Who is setting the IoT agenda?

Several weeks ago, I was in a briefing call with a panelist who was preparing for an event on privacy and security challenges in the IoT market. This was in the context of possible guidelines emanating from the US government.

There was the usual discussion about the pros and cons of light-touch and self-regulatory approaches, in keeping with the conditions that fostered innovation and investment in the Internet.

However, the world has moved on since the late-90s; it is worth spending time to reflect on today's conditions and what new approaches are warranted. And, to what extent will US agencies set the future direction?

2017 in Review: Making the IoT work

Looking back over notable, M2M/IoT corporate initiatives in 2017, mobile network operators (MNOs) and technology vendors were the two most active groups in the industry eco-system.

The main feature amongst MNOs was market expansion into new geographies. Sometimes, this happened individually; more often, it took the form of partnering with other network operators. This is a classic growth model for the mobile operator community.

In the technology vendor community, leading initiatives took the form of: acquisitions/investments; partnering (with MNOs, platform providers and system integrators); and, product innovation.

In comparative terms, activity among platform organizations was subdued. And, end-users barely featured among 2017 initiatives. It is likely that these last two data points mask a higher level of internal activity targeting operational scaling and in-house developments as firms solidify their foundations in the IoT market. As an example, Altair, a provider of engineering software to enterprise customers, acquired the Carriots IoT platform. This initiative illustrates the trend to internalize IoT capabilities and has parallels with the earlier acquisition of ThingWorx by PTC [1].

Innovation at ETSI IoT Week 2017

Last week, I attended ETSI's IoT Week, an annual event to explore the IoT standardization landscape and to see how industry and academics, around the world, are testing IoT implementation ideas for the future. Not surprisingly, the oneM2M standard featured prominently in the program and the display zone of demonstrator projects given that ETSI is one of 8 standards development organization (SDO) partners in the oneM2M project.

However, not everything on the agenda centered on oneM2M. Other standardization efforts were also represented including: ESMIG (energy); SigFox and LoRA Alliance in the LPWAN sector; ZigBee Alliance; and, international organizations such as ISO, IEC. And, several companies, including MNOs, demonstrated how they are addressing new business and revenue opportunities beyond IoT connectivity.

Mass-market data monetization

The motivation for this article comes from several recent and groundbreaking announcements relating to the commercialization of consumer data. In one of these, Proximus [1] launched myAnalytics, a service that sells aggregated customer data as a ‘market research’ service for businesses such as tourism agencies, event organizers, marketers and those in charge of mobility management.

Telefonica, one of the larger communications service providers, announced plans to create a personal data bank for each of its 350m customers [2]. This will allow customers the means of storing, managing and selling their own data. When questioned about Telefonica’s plans, Vodafone’s CEO expressed puzzlement as to whether this is any different from everyday protection of customer data [3]. This reaction should set a few alarm bells ringing.

Impressions from IoT Solutions World Congress 2016

While I often attend Mobile World Congress in Barcelona during February, this was my first experience of IoTSW Congress and seeing Barcelona in October. The show is growing impressively, doubling the number of exhibitors and attendees compared to 2015. If this pace holds up, IoTSWC could surpass MWC within three years, such is the growth potential for the IoT industry.

 In addition to three speaking slots – one for the Industrial Internet Consortium, another for Intel’s Corporate Strategy group and a third on main Congress track - I had several discussions with industrial businesses, investors and solution providers about the state of the market.

Here are a few observations that stood out from the event. 

Comparative advantage in IoT standardization

Last year, I wrote a post about the landscape of standards development organizations, industry-alliances and company consortia [1]. Several recent developments have led me to revisit the topic. There are signs that the IoT market is maturing. Users and service providers are well beyond the first hurdle of understanding a new capability and set of enabling technologies. And, businesses are exploring the longer-term road map for IoT solutions and the underlying enablers they will need.

Nigel Upton, Worldwide Director and GM IoT/GCP at Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HP-E) encapsulated the issue, from a business standpoint, in a recent conference presentation [2]. He advised companies that they could simplify their IoT strategies by using a common platform, a common data model and an IoT standard. It so happens that HP-E chose oneM2M, viewing it as the best supported standard on offer.

A tweet to IoT’s low-power, wide-area networking proponents

It’s amazing to think that Twitter recently turned ten years old. This milestone came on the heels of a rumored, CEO-level assessment [1] of whether to relax its longstanding 140-character limit on tweets. Some of the reaction to this development questions how Twitter, a major influencer of condensed, bite-sized communications, could pull the rug from under its core proposition.

There’s a timely lesson in Twitter’s evolution for the rapidly growing band of companies developing low-power, wide-area and small payload IoT applications.

2015 in Review: The strategic balance between IoT scale and value

Corporate activity in the M2M/IoT market continues to grow in line with the roughly 30% growth rate that many market analysts forecast for connected devices. Acquisition and investment activity grew at a much faster rate over the past few years and reflects a positive corporate attitude to this important market.

Mobile network operators (MNOs) were very active especially in the low-power, wide-area networking (LPWAN) arena which is positive in terms of driving industry scale. Companies in the platform services segment were even more active highlighting the scope for value creation higher up the industry value chain. The industry dynamics between MNOs and platform service providers will set up an interesting strategic challenge – that of scale vs. value – which will affect all market participants over the coming years.

IoT growth options for service providers

Do mobile operators and M2M service providers have a role in the emerging IoT market? This is a hot topic in corporate boardrooms, industry journals [1] and IoT conferences [2]. It’s also one where MNOs, M2M service providers and technology providers hold opposing opinions, even within the same company.

It’s clear that companies are keen to capitalise on the IoT opportunity. This should be no surprise given the drum-roll of multiple billions of connected devices from different analyst firms. What holds companies back is their relatively incomplete grasp of:

• how the market will develop along different dimensions,
  
• where the innovative commercial opportunities are crystallizing,
  
• and, what strategic initiatives will help companies to position themselves to capitalize on market opportunities (as distinct from worrying about where the next tranche of connected device sales will come from). 

One way to simplify the IoT strategy challenge is to step back and visualize the emerging market landscape. This provides the map against which individual companies can plot their IoT strategies. It’s a bit like a person sitting on top of a tall hill, surveying the surrounding countryside and deciding on the best route between points A and B, taking account of his/her own resourcefulness.

Just like the countryside below our strategist on top of the hill, it’s useful to think of the IoT map in terms of a cube to illustrate three avenues of growth.

IoT alliances and interoperability

I have recently been consulting on the topic of IoT Platform strategy with a particular focus on the recently issued oneM2M standard. As part of this work, I researched the activities of different IoT alliances and industry groups because there is a lot of industry discussion about competing standards.

In discussions with company executives, a recurring theme is that nobody wants to take a bet on any single ‘standards’ approach. As a result, many companies choose to hedge their bets and participate in multiple initiatives. Having examined several of the leading initiatives from different dimensions, it’s debatable whether companies are getting a strategic, product-development return on their participation (setting aside brand-building and corporate networking benefits).

There are many different ways to look at each of initiatives. For this post, let’s begin by concentrating on their mission and primary objectives.

Roadmap for IoT strategy

Over the past few weeks, there have been several industry conferences, magazine articles and webinars dealing with the IoT market opportunity and the role of different companies across the eco-system. The topics addressed in these events have generally highlighted M2M use cases (vertical-specific applications) and the promising role for telecoms operators.

In many respects, the subjects under discussion have been disappointing. They indicate that many parts of the industry are still coming up the M2M learning curve and some way off dealing with the commercial implications of the IoT market. In terms of the competitive landscape that is forming around the IoT, company executives who are coming to terms with M2M are not yet in a position to plan sustainable IoT strategies.

So, how do you tell if your organization is working with an M2M mind-set and whether it has embarked on the transition from M2M to IoT?