We are a customer-driven, problem-solving software company. And in 2019 we helped 300% more customers than we did the year before. Why?

Our success flows directly and proportionally to the investment we make in dramatically simplifying the management of connected products and devices. As organizations scale the number of products they ship, the number of customers using them, and the number of integrated platforms, applications, and services touching those devices - it becomes daunting.

So where did we make those investments?

Device Lifecycle Management

• Fleet Management: It is easier now than ever to create a unified system of record for all devices, configurations, customers, locations, update statuses, and more.
• Richer Software Update Management: We expanded the number of ways you can identify and target specific devices, types, geographies, accounts, and more with automated software updates.
• Tags: Customers can associate any label or ‘tag’ they choose with any device. This makes definition of groups and searching for devices simpler.
• Audit and Reporting: Customers can more easily visualize the status of any device management operation including commands, updates, and even alerts.

Orchestration

The most significant product enhancement we made in 2019 was the major expansion of our Orchestration capabilities.

• Integration: Customers can integrate their devices and data with virtually any edge or cloud application and service through what we call ‘One Click and Zero Touch’ integration.
• Automation: Whether it’s device management or other features, we’ve made it very easy to automate a variety of deployment, monitoring, and management capabilities for individual devices or across entire fleets.
• Federation: Leveraging the integrations we deliver and the automation service, customers can normalize, filter, throttle, and federate device data to any upstream service they choose. This executes directly from the edge to the target cloud service.

Beyond customer growth and product expansion, we went deeper in the market with integrated partner offerings. The highlight in this area was our announcement of an integrated device management and orchestration capability with AWS IoT Greengrass. Not only did we weave this powerful edge computing service into our own offering, but we created a High Availability service for business critical applications.

2020 - What’s Next?

I started 2020 at CES marveling at all the ways that companies are intelligently connecting products and creating new customer experiences. There are too many examples to name here, and you know the list anyway.

But what is clear is that we are entering the second era of connected products. This was a common refrain, and my clearest observation during my meetings last week.

In the first era of the connected product, organizations chose a mode of connectivity - WiFi, Bluetooth, Cellular, LPWAN, etc., built an OTA feature, and shipped products. This was fine at first because the product line was simple and homogeneous. Updates happened infrequently, and customers didn’t complain too loudly about complicated provisioning or lack of simple data access. In this era there were 723 IoT platform vendors telling you how much you needed them.

In this second era of the connected product, organizations are seeing larger volumes of deployed products, more connectivity options, new security challenges, multiple layers of software, and more sophisticated remote management requirements. Devices and their data need to connect to multiple upstream applications - but with different permissions and data paths.

All of a sudden, it ain’t so simple. That’s ok; nothing great is ever easy.

In 2020, we are even more focused on simplifying the management and orchestration of infrastructure you use to build, deploy and support connected products. You will see more announcements about our deep integration with key platforms you use in the rest of your business - both in the cloud, at the edge and the network that connects them. We recognize that the device is just the beginning of a powerful value chain that connects your ideas to your products and your products to your customers. 

Well we look forward to tripling in size again this year - helping more and more customers, and their customers, embrace the enormous opportunity of connected products. Stay tuned for the next wave of innovation, and let us know how we can help you on your connected product journey.

Happy, healthy, peaceful and prosperous new year to you!