Australian Organizations Seek an Open IoT Ecosystem

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Open systems feature highly on IOT decision makers radars in Australia, according to recently published IDC research. IoT decision makers are putting a high priority on open standards for data and connectivity and on open source software standards. About 81% of organizations rank common data and connectivity standards as extremely or very important, 63% rate open source software standards the same. 

"This is unsurprising," says IDC Research Manager Jamie Horrell. "IoT will be an open ecosystem of horizontally specialised players, bringing their own best of breed technology to the table. Open standards are critical to interoperability and it would be a bold move to rely on proprietary standards or vertically integrated players to deliver operational transformation."

Security and privacy concerns are the biggest perceived inhibitors for deployment of IoT solutions in Australia, with the Australian public remaining nervous about how organisations treat their data following recent well publicised security breaches and attacks. Despite this, IDC sees the number of connected devices and connections continuing to grow with freight monitoring, manufacturing operations and connected vehicles being the top three applications of enterprise spending by 2020.

"This is the crux of IoT," said Horrell. "IoT is not about driving IT efficiency but rather operational efficiency. Applications like supply chain are obvious targets for this."

IDC expects to see 2.7 million connected commercial vehicles, 1.7 million pets and 1.8 million healthcare appliances in Australia by 2020, reinforcing that IoT is about connecting things that weren't originally intended to be connected to the Internet. 

The total IoT market in Australia will grow to be worth over A$18 billion by 2020, with the pie being shared across both traditional vendors and vendors traditionally associated with operational and industrial technologies.

About IDC Trackers 

IDC's Global IoT Decision Maker Survey was conducted in July and August 2016 and includes over 4,500 (WW Total) respondents from more than 25 countries worldwide, spanning a wide array of industries (including manufacturing, retail, utilities, government, health, and finance). 

IDC's IoT Spending Guide provides guidance on the expected technology opportunity around this market at a regional and total worldwide level. Segmented by industry, use case, and technology component, this guide provides vendors with insights into this rapidly growing market and how the market will develop over the coming years. It includes 35 specific use cases for the Australian market as well as an overall Australian market view. 

IDCs IoT Ecosystem Forecast provides forecasts guidance around number of IoT connections and number of IoT applications by use case in Australia. 

About IDC 

International Data Corporation (IDC) is the premier global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications, and consumer technology markets. With more than 1,100 analysts worldwide, IDC offers global, regional, and local expertise on technology and industry opportunities and trends in over 110 countries. IDC's analysis and insight helps IT professionals, business executives, and the investment community to make fact-based technology decisions and to achieve their key business objectives. Founded in 1964, IDC is a subsidiary of IDG, the world's leading technology media, research, and events company.