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5 top trends for the IoT in 2019

Investments in the Internet of Things will increase in 2019, even as the term 'IoT' begins to fade. Here are five most significant trends that organizations can expect, according to Forrester Research.
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5 top trends for the IoT in 2019

In the new report, Predictions 2019: The Internet Of Things IoT’s Business Promise Persists After A Consumer Reckoning, Forrester Research analysts have identified five top trends they say will dominate the IoT landscape, highlighted in the following slides. The report combines the predictions of analysts Michele Pelino, Frank E. Gillett, Julie A. Ask, Nigel Fenwick, Paul Miller, Dan Bieler, Bill Martorelli and Merritt Maxim.
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1. Bundled service offerings will catalyze a sleepy consumer IoT market.

“In 2019, we’ll see the major players, such as utilities, insurance, and grocery and food companies, take a different approach with ongoing services enabled by smart devices,” the Forrester analysts write. “They’ll offer subscription offerings like Verizon’s Hum, an automobile service that blends roadside assistance, maintenance monitoring, and driver monitoring, using two in-car devices, for $20 per month — eschewing the upfront device costs. Vendors will use upfront discounts to lure more customers in the hope that they’ll want to continue once they see the utility.”
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2. The umbrella term “IoT” will fade.

Forrester analysts predict that "in 2019, the term 'IoT' will take a back seat in the marketing lexicon, with vendors of these solutions reverting to language that describes business solutions and outcomes, such as 'real-time asset performance monitoring' — a combination of IoT, data, analytics, workflow, business process, and insight with recognizable and quantifiable value."
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3. IoT platforms will proliferate, and cloud giants will compete to be their destination.

"We’ll see IoT (but not cloud) platform vendors narrow their focus on specific use cases and tout their APIs and capabilities for integration with enterprise applications, analytics, and security management," the Forrester analysts write. "However, these two hyperscale clouds will continue to feverishly compete to be the destination for other IoT platforms, in addition to refining their own. In 2019, we expect each to deliver IoT platform partnership announcements, similar to what we’ve seen with Microsoft and PTC, to expand and improve the use cases they serve. We expect Google to be more aggressive, too, not by acquisition but by courting similar partnerships."
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4. Cybercriminals will lay siege to a smart city implementation.

“The continued growth of smart city implementations to manage everything from smart lighting to traffic controls and public transportation is introducing a diverse class of potentially insecure connected devices that cybercriminals can now exploit, often leveraging ransomware as the tactic," the Forrester analysts write. "In 2019, we expect to see more targeted ransomware attacks against vulnerable components of successful smart city implementations. These hacks will cause disruptions to citizen services and will force cities to invest in cybersecurity defenses to minimize the risk of further attacks."
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5. A market for IoT managed services will emerge in 2019.

"In 2019 we’ll see the emergence of an IoT 'run' market to help manage, monitor, and operate the fragmented array of IoT networks, devices, and assets," The Forrester analysts write. "These offerings will target the ever-expanding array of smart products as well as the networks and platforms to enable IoT solutions. IoT stakeholders, primarily in the manufacturing, healthcare, retail, and utilities markets, will sign several $100 million-plus contracts with outsourcing providers for “run” offerings.”