ABB Challenges the Myth: Industrial IoT Platforms Aren’t the Bottom Line

“Right now, the IIoT platform market is a zero‑billion‑dollar market,” says Sean Parham, corporate vice president of product management at ABB Ability. “I’ve heard others use that line. It’s not like I came up with it.” Yet, with roughly 450 industrial IoT platforms in the marketplace according to ABB, very few are profitable. “There’s a lot happening, but customers aren’t making direct money off platform sales,” Parham explains.

Many large conglomerates and nimble startups alike, along with analysts, have become enamored with the idea of a single “universal” IIoT platform, overlooking the broader reality. “We do a lot of work with platforms, but customers don’t buy them,” he notes. “When was the last time you bought a database just for fun?”

Despite this, numerous firms continue to push their IIoT platforms as the definitive solution for all. They signal that their platform will dominate the market.

[Industrial IoT World is the event that takes IIoT from inspiration to implementation, supercharging business and operations. Get your ticket now.]

Parham argues that the prevailing analysis is rooted in a 10‑ to 15‑year‑old mindset. The industry has evolved into a software‑as‑a‑service ecosystem.

Salesforce once explored this shift with its “No software” logo—a stylized “S” with a red circle and slash reminiscent of the Ghostbusters logo. As Marc Benioff noted in a 2013 blog post, the symbol sparked debate: PR teams found it overly negative, while the press questioned its accuracy. “It made you wonder what they were talking about. They are a software company,” Parham says. “What they meant was: Forget the infrastructure. Focus on your application and value.” He adds, “You don’t have to drag your IT organization into a debate about databases.”

ABB is not abandoning the IIoT platform space entirely. It offers the ABB Ability platform, but it positions it as a means to an end rather than a generic solution. The company emphasizes applications and its century‑long industrial domain expertise. On the IT side, ABB leans heavily on partners like Microsoft to avoid reinventing core functionality, keeping the focus on end users.

Parham sees this approach as a differentiator. “We’re shifting from talking about our IoT platform to focusing on applications,” he says. “We’re glad to see the market moving in that direction.”