IoT cloud technology has been fraught with landmines, and many hyperscalers have proven that they can’t be trusted to underpin your IoT solution architecture. This blog covers why the future of IoT is already here. 

I recently read a recent article on Forbes, from analyst Bill Curtis. It is a fantastic discussion on what’s going right – and wrong – in IoT cloud technology. It’s a must-read, particularly as hyperscalers continue to prove they can’t be trusted to underpin your IoT solution architecture. 

In the article, Bill poses an interesting theory – that IoT is still in its “Wild West” era. As much as I love a spaghetti western – we are well past the days of IoT brawls at the OK Corral. 

Consider this quote: “The hyperscalers thought they could dominate … and they couldn’t.” 

My friend Leonard Lee recently made this proclamation on a recent episode of IoT Coffee Talk. And, frankly, it’s a succinct (and perhaps scathing) diagnosis of the current landscape of IoT solution providers. 

Hyperscalers thought they could jump on the bandwagon, but quickly learned that you can’t build a flexible, scalable IoT solution that solves real business problems with cloud components alone. In his article, Bill goes on to give a spot-on review of why the future of IoT must include a functional feature-rich application targeted at operators. I couldn’t agree more!

However, I still think the article highlights a broader misunderstanding of the IoT provider market: looking at solutions from a narrow viewpoint rather than a broader perspective. 

“The incredible variety of situation-dependent device, data and application architectures is why there are no universal, ‘one size fits all’ middleware services for IoT. Comprehensive services have less flexibility to address specific solution requirements, so savvy developers look for simpler services that thoroughly address specific verticals or architectural configurations.”

A comprehensive solution does need Edge computing, Edge orchestration, IoT device and gateway connectivity, the ability to easily “talk” to any device in any protocol or language, connectivity to the Cloud or on-premise solution behind a firewall, and an operator-friendly interface that abstracts all that impressive tech into a simple, plain-language interface for operators to command and control devices in the field. (And much more, especially the ability to scale as you grow and take advantage of AI.)

Where people miss the mark is thinking that one platform cannot address all of these needs and be highly applicable and easily adaptable to different industries. Instead, they look to discrete providers for each of these needs and find themselves on a development and support nightmare that ultimately cannot scale.

The future IS flexible “middleware” that works with any device, gateway, protocol, cloud, or on-premise system. IoT will continue to fail without this approach. You need consistent software runtime to avoid vendor lock-in and a custom-build maintenance nightmare. 

How do I know that this is possible? ClearBlade built it. 

ClearBlade is a universal middleware option for IoT. We built our software to be highly flexible – cloud agnostic, device agnostic, open API, open standards-based, with an open adapter framework to connect via any protocol.

We provide IoT middleware for both cloud and Edge to over 270 customers worldwide across a large variety of industries including transportation, buildings, manufacturing, energy, water, and healthcare.

We also provide the application to reduce time to an ROI by allowing operators to create and customize their digital twins, all without dropping into code or a complex visual builder. 

Just ask the 250 customers that migrated to ClearBlade from Google IoT Core or reach out to us and we’d be happy to walk you through it. 

Image by Brigitte Werner from Pixabay