Whether 2025 will be the year of open platforms remains to be seen. In any case, the market overview has received its second version, the first for this year. The Smart Automation Market Overview 2025/1 is online. With a number of new features, and not just in the menu. Two new providers and platforms, one more name will be added soon, two have currently been dropped. And the comparison tables have been redesigned.
Clearer terminology helps you find your way around. The landing page of the market overview is now called platform providers, the page with the comparison tables platform comparison.
Contact Software and Siemens are currently not listed among the platform providers because they were the only ones who did not complete the latest online survey for their platforms.
This does not necessarily have to be the end state, but it is interesting that the two IT providers in the overview apparently find it difficult to position themselves openly and clearly on OT.
New additions are TTTech Digital Solutions with UBIQUE and Hilscher with netFIELD. Both will soon be presented in an interview with their platform strategy. Beckhoff Automation with TwinCAT has shown interest. In other words, a recently founded company in the TTTech Group and two established automation specialists. It seems to be emerging that the opening of the OT world to IT, cloud and AI is mainly being initiated by OT. So much for the buzzword “merging OT and IT”.
The comparisons in the three tables again focus on the fields of application, but now also on interoperability and the target markets of the platforms, while the question of openness is no longer an issue that reveals important differences. There will soon be another table reflecting the providers’ efforts with regard to cybersecurity. This topic will probably be one of the main topics in automation very soon.
The market overview is alive and well. And the open Linux platforms are developing rapidly. I’m looking forward to seeing what new developments there will be at the Hannover Fair. My plan to update the overview every six months or so at the time of the main trade fairs is obviously a good time frame.