VDC Research Blog




Claroty, Competitors Continue OT Cybersecurity Arms Race

by Jared Weiner | 3/12/2024

Last week, Claroty announced it had raised $100 million in strategic growth financing. Building on $635 million in previously-raised funding, Claroty will use this new round―led by investments from Delta-v Capital, SE Ventures, and Rockwell Automation, among others―to scale the company’s solution offerings, expand in emerging regions, develop core and adjacent technologies, and strengthen its partnership ecosystem. Learn more

Automating the Manual: AI-driven Requirements Management

by Brendan Bradley | 3/11/2024

While ambitious goals to utilize generative artificial intelligence (AI) to automate the writing of code have gained popularity with recent advancements in AI, engineering functions elsewhere within the software development life cycle (SDLC) may prove to be better suited for near-term deployment of AI. User competency issues and security vulnerabilities remain considerable barriers to widescale use of generative AI coding tools. Learn more

Scalability Will Enable Next Wave of IIoT Platforms Market Growth

by Jared Weiner | 3/11/2024

In recent years, growth within the market for Industrial IoT Platforms has been driven in large part by the increasing availability of affordable processors, sensors, and other hardware components. This, in turn, has lowered IIoT adoption barriers for small to midsize industrial organizations. Initiatives driven by economic- and labor-related factors have contributed to a growing interest in automating various operational processes―such as those for quality assurance and remote monitoring―further fueling market growth. Learn more

Key IoT & Embedded Takeaways from Intel IFS Direct 2024

by Dan Mandell | 2/24/2024

The first Intel Foundry Direct Connect event took place this week and VDC Research was on hand to learn about the biggest implications to the IoT and embedded market. There were several key announcements made during the event on February 21st including the launch of Intel Foundry – Intel’s System Foundry approach to enable full-stack optimization for the AI era. Bleeding-edge process technologies are typically most focused on datacenter/hyperscalers, HPC, digital models, and enterprise AI applications. Learn more

The Drive to Standardize Automotive Software Updates

by Brendan Bradley | 1/30/2024

With the growth of the software-defined vehicle (SDV) and advancements in electrification across the mobility space, over-the-air (OTA) updates have emerged as the go-to method for both the maintenance and enhancement of in-vehicle software and features. Both innovators such as Tesla and NIO, as well as their legacy counterparts in GM and Honda, have adopted OTA as a way to remotely improve customer satisfaction, delivering new capabilities and features to vehicles as well as carrying out critical functional fixes or security patches to vehicle drivetrains and infotainment systems. Learn more

Proceed with Caution: The Need for Careful Automotive OTA Update Management

by Brendan Bradley | 1/24/2024

Initially adopted within the mobile phone industry and spreading across the consumer electronics market, over-the-air (OTA) updates have emerged as an effective solution to maintaining IoT systems and devices in the field, enabling the remote deployment of feature enhancements and patches to device firmware, software, configuration, and operating system (OS). Learn more

Securing the Road Ahead: Self-Driving Cars & Cybersecurity

By nature, autonomous cars amplify cybersecurity stakes. If hackers compromise a self-driving car’s internal computing network, its safety critical components (brakes, gas, transmission, headlights, etc.) can become exposed. Fully automated fleets will be prime targets for ransomware hacks. In the future, crucial freight and trucking infrastructure will depend on automated systems. Learn more

Overcoming Local Hardware Constraints Via the Cloud

by Brendan Bradley | 11/13/2023

The COVID-19 pandemic introduced numerous complications for embedded projects, resulting in severe delays in production times. Government-mandated lockdowns and similar company policies resulted in many engineering teams suddenly working remotely from home. With no contingency plan in place for such an unprecedented set of circumstances, many distributed teams were left with little to no local access to the physical hardware they required to continue development of their projects. Learn more

Funneling Funds into the Cloud

by Brendan Bradley | 11/9/2023

Venture capital (VC) and private equity (PE) have focused their sights – and their wallets – on the cloud-native development market, seeking to reap the rewards of the potential for an industry-wide shift among software developers as they transition from traditional local development towards development performed in the cloud. Learn more

Digital Twins Get a Leg Up with Other Technologies

by David Daniels & Dan Mandell | 11/2/2023

Engineering organizations are investing their time and resources looking into a variety of technologies to streamline the product development process while increasing innovation, eliminating waste, reducing costs, maximizing resources, and limiting their carbon footprint. This will allow businesses to gain competitive advantages and win industries. One of those technologies, digital twins, share growing synergies with other technologies, such as generative AI, 3D interface design, Internet of Things (IoT), metaverse, augmented reality (AR), and virtual reality (VR). Learn more

Reactions from Honeywell Connect 2023

by Jared Weiner | 10/23/2023

Honeywell (NASDAQ: HON) welcomed more than 200 customers, partners, industry analysts, and media members to this year’s Honeywell Connect conference, a software- and digital transformation-focused event held last week in Dallas, Texas. The event featured a wide range of executive presentations, customer success stories, roundtable discussions, expert-led breakout sessions, and technology demonstrations in which Honeywell Connected Enterprise (HCE) emphasized its identity as a software company by highlighting its quickly-maturing capabilities in the areas of industrial cybersecurity, industrial IoT, and sustainability. Learn more

PTC & Pure-systems: Enabling Efficient Agile Engineering

by Brendan Bradley | 10/5/2023

On October 4th of 2023, PTC (NASDAQ: PTC) announced the acquisition of Germany-based pure-systems, a leading vendor of product line engineering (PLE) tools through its pure::variants solution. PLE solutions provide variant management capabilities to manufacturers, enabling them to efficiently share engineering assets across product families, greatly reducing development time and costs. Learn more

Palm Reading at the Checkout – Decoding Amazon One

by Chad Meyers, Andy Adelson & David Krebs | 10/5/2023

Earnings season is in full flow and the VDC team has been tracking results from several leading market players across AIDC, enterprise mobility, and machine vision. Q2 2023 was a rough quarter all around, with market leaders expecting continued weakness through the end of the year. As a whole, large projects have temporarily dried up and the run rate business has taken a hit for vendors and distribution partners alike. Learn more

The New Reality of Employee Training: Virtual Reality

by Elliot Mintz | 9/27/2023

PFor years, industries have been plagued by inefficient onboarding, training, and knowledge transfer. Traditional training methods have proven to be not only slow, unengaging, and ineffective, but costly and even dangerous for industries such as retail, healthcare, and manufacturing. Learn more