In my article “Which Top IoT companies are losing, keeping or winning its Charm in 2017?”, I reviewed the Top 10 IoT companies that lost, maintained or gained Charm in the IoT sector in 2017. Here are my updates for 2018.

Defining Charm. The power of pleasing or attracting through their strategy, investments, innovation, teams, products, events and media presence. Their attractiveness is well received all-round – by investors, customers, developers and analysts.

Which Ones Lost Charm in 2018?

The 5 Top companies that have lost IoT charm in 2018 are:

1. Cisco. According to a Cisco study in 2017, only 26% of companies surveyed say they have achieved success with their IoT initiatives. And maybe executives at Cisco considered that it was time to go back to the basic. Cisco has taken their intent-based networking concept, which they first revealed in June 2017, and extended it to IoT. Maybe a cohesive IoT Strategy has begun to take shape at Cisco last year, but I did not see expected results of their Cisco Kinetic platform. I do not see any merits in the company gaining their Charm.
2. GE Digital. In 2018, GE Digital´s leadership in Industrial IoT has remained in question. The parent company GE is expected to spin off the division into a standalone firm and is selling a majority stake in ServiceMax, considered a strategic acquisition only 2 years ago. All the turbulence around GE has negatively affected the sales of the Predix IoT Platform during 2018. No doubt that GE Digital lost their Charm in 2018.
3. IBM. In spite of IBM Watson being named a leader in Worldwide IoT Platforms for 2017 by the IDC MarketScape, the results of IoT investment in 2016 did not show expected results. IBM continues to lose relevance in 2018 against other Cloud IoT vendors. IBM is pushing to be the driving force in IoT and become once again the most recognisable name in the IoT technology industry. I am confident that after IBM’s acquisition of Red Hat the company has the potential to recover their Charm in 2019. Great expectations for next year but in 2018 they lost their Charm.
4. Dell Technologies. Dell Technologies’ Edge and IoT Solutions Division announcements in 2018 have particular resonance for channels. But maybe because the company is launching specific IoT solutions in phases with the appropriate reseller partners, I did not see the scale I had expected. Dell could not repeat the momentum of 2017 and lost their Charm in 2018.
5. SAP Leonardo. After investing $2.2 billion in IoT and partner opportunities, SAP rolled out new applications and services around IoT and is making efforts to reduce the complexity of developing and deploying IoT solutions. However I did not see increased market share and new customers wins. SAP Leonardo could not keep their Charm in 2018.

Which Ones are Keeping their Charm?

The 3 Top companies that have kept their IoT Charm in 2018 are:

1. PTC. Since Rockwell and PTC announced their partnership earlier 2018 at Rockwell –  including a $1 billion equity investment from Rockwell into PTC – the two companies have been hard at work to bring their respective offerings into alignment. And before the end of the year they released their first collaborative offering: FactoryTalk InnovationSuite, which provides improved data insights through a single source of operations visibility and systems status.  PTC  also partners with Microsoft to help customers accelerate Digital Transformation in IoT.  The company announced in fall 2018 that it is preparing an $18 million restructuring plan in 2019. We will probably see the impact in 2019, but PTC deserves to keep the Charm in 2018.
2. Intel. IoTSWC 2018 awarded Intel-ARM-Pelion for innovative solutions jointly developed by Intel, ARM and Pelion enabling users to connect any IoT device to the cloud in a matter of seconds. Reducing the complexity of IoT development, Intel revamped their IoT roadmap to benefit developers and integrators in 2018. Other news through 2018 that helps Intel keep their charm were: Intel Capital pumps $72 million into AI, IoT, cloud and silicon startups, $115 million invested so far in 2018.  Dell Technologies is combining tools from its broad portfolio with technology from Intel and partners in the Dell Technologies IoT Solutions Partner Program. Intel deserves to keep their Charm in 2018. 
3. AWS.  In AWS re:Invent 2018, Amazon announced a variety of AWS IoT releases. Also, AWS IoT Greengrass extended functionality with connectors to external applications, hardware root of trust security, and isolation configurations , AWS IoT Device Management Now Provides New Features for Fleet Indexing and Jobs and Announcing AWS IoT SiteWise, Now Available in Preview. No doubt AWS has kept their Charm in 2018.

Which Ones are Winning Charm?

The 3 Top companies that have won IoT Charm in 2018 are:

1. Microsoft. Microsoft is now the world’s most valuable company. The company made a major statement earlier in 2018 when they announced a $5 billion commitment to IoT projects for the next 4 years. That new investment has already resulted in new products, such as Azure Sphere and Azure Digital Twins. The company also launched their IoT deployment and management platform Axure IoT Central to the general public. New customers, new partners and good analyst recommendations makes them win the Charm in 2018.
2. ARM. The list of ARM’s acquisitions in 2018, includes enterprise data management leader, Treasure Data (enabling device-to-data IoT platform), Stream Technologies (to expands IoT connectivity and device management capabilities) and ChaoLogix. These acquisitions and the new Pelion IoT Platform will give ARM businesses super powers. For the second consecutive year, ARM is in the Top winners of the IoT Charm list.
3. Google. Google I/O 2018 marks a new era for IoT devices with new Google Assistant capabilities. In 2018 Google bought Xively to improve their IoT platform. The company invested in creating a strong ecosystem adding new IoT partners.  Finally Google forays into edge computing with cloud IoT Edge and TPU. Good reasons to include Google in the winners list.

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