IoT Ecosystem: 3 Reasons to Join a Technology Alliance

The Internet of Things (IoT) is growing relentlessly. According to IoT Analytics, there were around 9.5 billion connected devices in 2019, which far exceeds the original forecast of 8.3 billion devices. As companies look to adopt IoT to fundamentally transform business operations and value delivery, it’s immediately evident that IoT is an ecosystem game. No single vendor is able to deliver an end-to-end connected solution alone, and strategic partnerships will be paramount for companies to successfully harness IoT potential.

A technology alliance is formed precisely to achieve this goal. Revolving around an innovative core technology, it aims to deliver easily consumable and accessible connected solutions for end customers in industrial, commercial and consumer marketplaces. To do so, it brings together a variety of vendors with complementary solutions and expertise to fortify partnerships and overcome resource gaps. Ultimately, technology alliances are deemed to establish the technical and operational foundation needed for a vibrant and sustainable IoT ecosystem.

IoT vendors, in particular, are in a unique position to reap the multifold benefits of technology alliance initiatives.

1. Reduce Risks and Accelerate Time-to-Market

Cutting-edge technologies are continuously reshaping the competitive landscape and presenting unprecedented business values, but they don’t come without challenges. The more innovative the technology, the higher the stakes as companies enter uncharted territory where the market is largely nascent. Being part of a technology alliance allows you to seize disruptive IoT possibilities while mitigating the inherent risk and complexity that come along. By leveraging partners’ capabilities and focusing on your core competencies, you can reduce development time and costs to deliver viable IoT products to the market, faster.

2. Transcend Technical Adoption Barriers

To tackle the challenge of growing IoT fragmentation, interoperability must be infused into IoT design from the get-go. In this context, a technology alliance serves as an overarching standard umbrella of the focal enabling technology to pave the way to an open, scalable and interworking ecosystem of diverse products and solutions that are built on top of it. Besides immediate technology access, active standardization effort and robust testing and certification programs allow participants to benefit from easier technical integration, alongside enhanced technology transparency and compliance. This, in turn, helps to ensure long-term quality and compatibility of their connected devices and applications.

3. Generate and Capture New Business Opportunities

Technology alliances further provide a platform for cross-domain businesses – from developers and manufacturers to system integrators and service providers – to exchange knowledge and identify new technology use cases and business opportunities across verticals. At the same time, member vendors can capitalize on a bigger sales channel and larger coverage, while augmenting value proposition by combining complementary offerings to deliver a market-ready, end-to-end solution to their customers.

The MIOTY Alliance: A Real World Example

Founded in early 2020, the MIOTY Alliance is a representative example of such a technology alliance where companies can come together to deliver on the promise of IoT.  With Low Power Wide Area Networks (LPWAN) quickly establishing itself as one of the major IoT enablers, the alliance aims to empower global tech players with easy access to MIOTY – the only LPWAN protocol ratified by ETSI for unmatched Quality-of-Service, scalability and mobile communications. Learn more about MIOTY technology here.

Existing members like BehrTech bring in unique expertise and capabilities to help turn the enormous potential of the MIOTY protocol into reality. Specifically, MYTHINGS Central provides hardware vendors and solution providers with a versatile, out-of-the-box network and device management tool for their MIOTY-enabled devices and services, to deliver greater product value to the end users. Likewise, system integrators can faster engineer MIOTY-powered solutions that are tailored to their clients’ needs, by capitalizing on MYTHINGS rapid prototyping modules.

To sum it up, in the fast-changing IoT ecosystem with constantly evolving requirements and outcomes, technology alliances offer a strategic means for businesses to tap into emerging, disruptive innovations and unleash entirely new market opportunities.