The Three Phases of IIoT Platforms — and What Comes Next

 The Three Phases of IIoT Platforms:

𝗣𝗵𝗮𝘀𝗲 𝟭 — 𝗔𝗺𝗯𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 (𝘂𝗽 𝘁𝗼 𝟮𝟬𝟭𝟴)

The vision was bold: one universal IIoT platform to connect every business unit, every machine, every customer. Billions were invested to create cross-industry operating systems for the industrial internet.
But ambition collided with reality. Each hardware business had different architectures, standards, and pricing models. Integration costs exploded; internal adoption lagged.


𝗣𝗵𝗮𝘀𝗲 𝟮 — 𝗙𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 (𝟮𝟬𝟭𝟴–𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟬)

Business units started building their own stacks. Platform teams tried to consolidate, but the “horizontal dream” failed to meet the diverse needs of automation, motion, and process industries.
Governance blurred. Budgets fragmented. The universal platform quietly dissolved into a constellation of BU-specific initiatives.


𝗣𝗵𝗮𝘀𝗲 𝟯 — 𝗥𝗲-𝘀𝗰𝗼𝗽𝗲 (𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟬 – 𝘁𝗼𝗱𝗮𝘆)

Most of those large IIoT platforms now act as backbones or marketing frameworks — integration layers, architectures, or developer meta-platforms.

The growth engines have shifted decisively to vertical SaaS: MES, APM, digital twins, and AI-driven optimization. These are where customers see value, budgets flow, and recurring revenue scales.

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𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗮𝘄𝗮𝘆:

👉 Industrial software transformation didn’t fail — it evolved.

👉 The future won’t be built by horizontal platforms trying to connect everything.

👉 It will be built vertically, one workflow and one data model at a time.