The cellular M2M software platform market will see a strong growth from about 110 million cumulative connections worldwide in 2011 to 453 million by 2017, translating to $3.85bn in revenue, according to ABI Research.
A major challenge for the industry continues to be the complexity of developing, deploying, and managing M2M applications over the cellular network.
ABI Research practice director Sam Lucero said this is a challenge both for mobile network operators (MNOs) that are trying to offer profitable services tailored to the M2M market, as well as for application developers and service providers that are trying to reduce costs, speed time to market, and simplify robust application deployments.
The research firm revealed two major M2M software platform markets have emerged to address these challenges, namely connected device platforms (CDPs) and application enablement platforms (AEPs).
With CDPs, deployment and management of M2M connections over cellular networks is possible while AEPs enable application development as well as granular remote device management.
Meanwhile, several MNOs such as AT&T, Vodafone and Telefonica, among others have self-built their own CDPs though merchant market CDPs, such as those offered by Jasper Wireless, Ericsson, NEC, NSN, and others will be the first option for MNOs newly entering the market, and complementary option for MNOs that have self-built CDPs deployed.
"Core CDP functionality is going to become an increasingly commoditized aspect of the network, better left to third parties that can amortize development costs across multiple MNO customers," added Lucero.
The more nascent and smaller AEP market is forecasted to grow from about $168.9m in 2011 to nearly $1.72bn in 2017 where leading vendors in the market include Axeda and ILS Technology.
AEP market will see rapid growth as application developers consider offloading core functionality, such as data normalization, data modeling, and providing a rules engine, onto third-party platforms, instead of developing the application on a completely customised basis.
