Various pioneering players are emerging in the Internet of Things (IoT) platforms marketplace. Recognising these innovators, IDC has published a new report that focuses on companies with under $50 million in revenue offering inventive technology and/or groundbreaking new business models.

According to the report, Arrayent, BugLabs, and MachineShop are all companies to watch and will be top innovators in the Internet of Things platforms market for 2016.

IDC says Arrayent brings a holistic perspective to its IoT platform solution - from managing devices to application development and visualization as well as providing cloud services.

Meanwhile, BugLabs has been pushing the boundaries of simplifying the IoT platform since 2006 by developing open source IoT solutions quickly using its simple and easy-to-use platforms: dweet.io - a data source tool, and freeboard - a data visualisation tool.

MachineShop, on the other hand, has taken a unique approach to the IoT platform in that it is focused on being API-centric and services driven, IDC says.

"Enterprises today are paying increasing attention to the Internet of Things as a strategic element to drive growth in the future. Yet the IoT remains a complex collection of technology and services for enterprises to navigate," says Vernon Turner, IDC fellow for the Internet of Things and senior vice president of Enterprise Systems.

Carrie MacGillivray, IDC vice president mobility and Internet of Things, says, "The IoT platform, at its most basic level, is the middleware that connects endpoints to applications, enterprise backend systems, and analytics tools.

“However, the IoT platform is much more complicated than that because it provides device management, connectivity management, application enablement/management, visualisation tools and, in some cases, analytics functionality - and in most cases, no one vendor provides all of these piece parts in a cohesive solution. The challenge for enterprises is figuring out what platform will serve their needs.