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BOSCH: IoT Suite platform and IoT cloud services

© Analysys Mason Limited 2017

COMPANY PROFILE

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BOSCH: IoT SUITE PLATFORM AND IoT CLOUD SERVICES

AHMED ALI



Founded 1886

Offices Headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany. Worldwide offices

Employees 390 000 (December 2016)

Regional focus Global

Revenue EUR73.1 billion

Selected IoT

customers

Amdocs, EWE NETZ GmbH, Deutsche Telekom,

MANN+HUMMEL, Stadtwerke München, The Yield

Selected IoT

partnerships

• Implementation: Amdocs, HCL, Infosys, Tata

Consultancy Services, Tech Mahindra, T-Systems

• Semiconductor: Broadcom, Intel, NXP, Texas

Instruments, Marvell, MediaTek

• Cloud: Amazon Web Services, GE Digital, IBM,

Salesforce, SAP, PTC

• Technology: AWS, GE Digital, IBM, Salesforce, SAP,

PTC, Oracle, Software AG, Vodafone

2

Figure 1: Bosch company factsBosch is a privately held multinational corporation with more than

400 subsidiaries developing and providing industrial and

engineering technologies and services to different sectors

including automotive, manufacturing, energy and home

appliances.

Bosch made an early move into the IoT market through a

combination of internal development and technology acquisition in

the device connectivity and management space. In 2008, to

support its entry into the platform market, Bosch acquired

Innovations Software Technology which had expertise in

developing embedded applications. Innovations was later

established as Bosch Software Innovations (Bosch SI) in 2011.

Bosch launched its IoT Suite in 2013 and also established a new

subsidiary, Bosch Connected Devices and Solutions GmbH, to

focus on providing IoT sensor and connectivity solutions and

services to different verticals including logistics, transportation,

manufacturing and smart homes.

The company continued to strengthen its software offering

through acquisitions such as inubit, a process management

provider, in 2011, and ProSyst, a gateway software provider, in

2015.

In 2016, Bosch further extended its platform features by releasing

its IoT Cloud Service offering which runs on its own infrastructure.

Company summary



Figure 3: Bosch’s revenue by region, worldwide, 2016

3

Bosch’s total sales revenue in 2016 was EUR73.1 billion, growing

at a CAGR of 13% since 2012 (Figure 2). Over the same period,

net profit grew at a CAGR of 0.8% to reach EUR2.4 billion.

Revenue increased significantly in 2015 due to the full acquisition

of the former joint ventures; Automotive Steering and BSH

Hausgeräte.

Bosch Group has four main business sectors:

• Mobility Solutions (which generated 60% of 2016 revenue)

targets the automotive market. Bosch Connected Devices and

Solutions subsidiary is also part of this sector

• Industrial Technology (9%) contains automation and packaging

solutions

• Consumer Goods (24%), contains power tools and household

appliances

• Energy and Building Technology (7%) includes Security systems,

Heating systems, Service solutions and Services to increase

energy efficiency in non-residential buildings.

Bosch generated 80% of its 2016 revenue outside Germany.

Europe which is the company’s largest market (Figure 3) grew by

3.4% YoY. The Americas’ revenue decreased by 2.8% YoY due to

the lower sales in the Industrial Technology and Mobility Solutions

sectors and the overall lower sales in Latin America. Asia-Pacific

(and the rest of the world) is where Bosch had the highest growth

(8.3% YoY) as a result of strong sales throughout the region

Figure 2: Bosch’s revenue and net profit, worldwide, 2012 to 2016

Company summary: financials

44.7 46.1 49.0

70.6 73.1

2.3 1.3 2.6 3.5 2.4

0

20

40

60

80

2012 2013 2014 2015 2016

(EU

R b

illio

n)

Revenue Net profitSource: Bosch Group

53%

28%

19%Europe

Asia Pacific (and

other regions;

including Africa)

Americas

Total revenue:

EUR73.1 billion

Source: Bosch Group


© Analysys Mason Limited 2017 4

Bosch’s main IoT subsidiary is Bosch Software Innovations which

provides IoT software platform services and SaaS applications.

Bosch also provides sensors through Bosch Connected Devices

and Solutions. The two units collaborate together to develop and

deploy IoT solutions and services for different verticals and

enterprise customers. Bosch Software Innovations is not allocated

to a specific Bosch business sector as it works across all four.

Bosch SI employs 800 IoT professionals and has locations in

Germany, Bulgaria, Singapore, China, Japan and the US. Through

its IoT Suite solution, the company has executed more than 250

international projects and has connected more than 6 million

sensors and machines. Bosch is aiming to extend its services to

25 million devices by 2019.

The company offers IoT Suite hosted on its own cloud. The

platform implements a modular design that offers multiple device

management microservices and allows customers to pick and

choose services.

On top of the IoT Suite platform, Bosch also offers pre-packaged

applications for Manufacturing, Mobility, Energy, City, Home and

building. The company extends its capabilities, especially in the

application enablement space, by partnering with other major

platform providers such as PTC ThingWorx and Software AG

(Figure 4).

Besides the hardware and software components, Bosch supports

its IoT customers with a range of services including consulting,

training, co-development and marketing.

Business overview

Figure 4: Bosch IoT platform and solutions

Source: Analysys Mason

Devices, Sensors, Modules

Cellular, LPWA, Management platform

Bosh IoT Suite/ Bosch IoT Cloud

Mobility Manufacturing EnergyHome &

building

Partners’

Apps

Connectivity & connectivity

mgmt.

Device management

Hardware

Applications

Bosch PartnersKey

Sensors

HardwareGatewaysSoftware

(ProSyst)

e.g. PTC ThingWorx, Software AGApplication enablement &

analytics

City



Based on the company’s background in the manufacturing sector

and supplying various components to major industries including

automotive, Bosch’s focus for IoT is device connectivity and

management.

Bosch is providing generic capabilities to all vertical markets and

has extended these capabilities to selected markets (e.g. mobility,

buildings) with industrial IoT and manufacturing remaining its

strongest domain.

To reinforce its industrial IoT strategy, Bosch established its

Connected Industry unit in 2017. The unit will build on the

expertise of all of other Bosch’s units and will develop solutions

that can be used by Bosch internally and sold to customers.

The company also remains active in the standardisation process

and industry collaborations. Bosch:

• heavily influenced the development of a free and an open

source Industry 4.0 protocol known as the Production

Performance Management Protocol (PPMP).

• leads a European Union project to develop a unified industrial

manufacturing concept to meet different production

requirements

• is a member of both the German Platform Industrie 4.0 and the

USA-based Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC) alliances.

Bosch is building expertise in artificial intelligence and its

applications in IoT and industry 4.0. The company opened its

Bosch Centre for AI R&D in 2017 with around 100 experts to

support internal AI projects. The company will invest EUR300

million in AI research by 2021.

To strengthen support for device management, Bosch is hosting

its platform and services on its own as well as partners’ clouds.

Bosch data centres are located in German, USA and Singapore.

While it does not have the scale of a major cloud provider like

Amazon Web Services, this move can support the company’s

projects in the German and European markets when these

projects are subjected to data location regulations. The company

also continues to expand deployment options into major public

clouds including AWS, IBM and SAP.

As well as acquisitions (following slide), Bosch has invested in a

number of IoT start-ups. Notable examples include Actility for

LPWA connectivity and FogHorn and iguazio for edge analytics.

Vertical-specific investment examples include ParkTAG

(automotive), the Yield (agriculture) and Cheetah and Emperra

(healthcare).

IoT Strategic direction



Figure 5: Bosch’s key IoT acquisitions and investments, 2008 - 2017

Key acquisitions and investments

Date Company Transaction Description

Oct 2017 FogHorn Investment Founded in 2014 in the USA, FogHorn provides an analytics and machine learning development platform

edge and fog computing applications. The company has a total funding of USD47.5 million.

Jul 2017 iguazio Investment Founded in 2014 in Israel, iguazio is big data and analytics platform that support edge and fog applications.

The company has a total funding of USD48 million.

Apr 2017 Actility Investment Founded in 2010 in France, Actility is a connectivity solution provider that offers infrastructure and a

management platform for LPWA networks. The company has a total funding of USD100 million.

Apr 2015 ProSyst Acquisition Founded in 1997 in Germany, ProSyst developed software and middleware solutions for IoT gateways based

on Java and OSGi standard. After the acquisition, ProSyst was merged with Bosch Software Innovations and

its technology formed the ProSyst Gateway Software component of Bosch IoT Suite. ProSyst augmented

Bosch’s device management capabilities and extended the company’s device management support to a

wider range of protocols.

Oct 2011 Inubit Acquisition Inubit was a German software provider that developed and offered business process management (BPM)

solutions for enterprises in verticals such as utilities, automotive, insurance, logistics, healthcare and

telecommunications. The inubit suite supports integration between internal and external system applications

and allows enterprises to connect and manage different aspects of their business such as their workforce,

assets, business partners and customers. The solution is part of Bosch BPM offering which supports the IoT

Suite.

Sep 2008 Innovation

Software

Technology

Acquisition Founded in 1997 in Germany, Innovation Software developed rule-based enterprise software. The company

offered a range of products including customer relationship management, compliance and credit risk

platforms for different verticals such as financial, logistics, healthcare and energy management sectors.

Innovation formed the core of Bosch Software Innovation subsidiary.



Figure 6: Bosch IoT Suite’s Services

Product summary

Product Function Description

Bosch IoT Analytics • Analytics

• Anomaly detection

Provides analytics services based on anomaly detection which allow for device data validation and

detection of devices sending irregular messages which in turn can be used in predictive maintenance.

Bosch IoT Hub • Data ingestion

• Normalisation

• Protocol translation

Facilitates communications and messaging between devices, applications and services. It includes

protocol connectors that allow data ingestion and normalisation from different types of devices. It is

available on Bosch IoT Cloud as a pay-as-you-go model and integrates with other Bosch IoT Suite services.

Bosch IoT Permissions • User management

• Authentication and

authorisation

Supports the multitenancy feature of the platform which applies managed access rules and allows

authenticating and authorising multiple users, groups, roles, applications and tenants. It allows

enterprises to allocate and monitor permissions accordance with compliance requirements.

Bosch IoT Remote

Manager

(and ProSyst Gateway

Software)

• Device management Provides backend remote management and control features for gateways and devices including lifecycle

management, firmware updates, remote diagnostics and security administration. It supports open APIs

and open standards such as OSGi, TR-069 and OMA-DM. It is based on the ProSyst technology and is

supported by the on-premise ProSyst mPRM device management agent. The service is available on

Bosch IoT Cloud, AWS or SAP clouds.

Bosch IoT Rollouts • Firmware updates

• Over-the-air (OTA)

Enables and manages largescale firmware update rollout for gateways, controllers and devices through

cables or over the air. Devices are either connected directly to service using an optimised interface or

indirectly through device management servers. The service is available on Bosch IoT Cloud, AWS or IBM

Cloud.

Bosch IoT Things • Digital twin

• Device registry

• Search index

A platform for creating and managing device digital twins and device inventory. It supports search

indexing services to allow the identification of specific devices based on their attributes and domains



Figure 7: Bosch’s selected IoT use cases products

Use cases

Customer Country Scope

The Yield Australia The Yield is an agricultural technology startup offering IoT solutions to connect farms. The company used Bosch IoT

Suite capabilities to develop and launch its end-to-end agricultural solution for irrigated crops; Sensing+™, in October

2017. The solution allows farmers to use data to facilitate tasks and reduce guesswork in aspects such as observing

the weather conditions and calculating irrigation requirements. The solution, based on microclimate sensors, a central

on-farm gateway and Bosch’s cloud platform, combines the real-time data with predictive analytics to produce a 7-day

forecast about crops conditions and requirements. The solution also allows farmers to specify certain rules to alert

about critical events such as frost.

MANN+HUMMEL Singapore MANN+HUMMEL is a German manufacturer and a provider of filtration solutions such as liquid and air filters, intake

systems and thermal management components. Through its IoT Lab in Singapore, the company developed and trialled

its solution OurAir that addresses air quality problems in metropolitan cities. The solution uses sensors distributed

across the city to collect and analyse data about the level of pollution and provides information to customers about their

surroundings’ environmental conditions and their filtering systems. The company is planning to install 20 000 devices

per year and turned to Bosch IoT Suite for its device management features. The ProSyst gateway agent in combination

with the Bosch IoT Remote Manager provided the required remote monitoring of the device fleet. It also enabled device

grouping, configuration and software updates.

QIVICON/Deutsche

Telekom

Germany QIVICON is an industry alliance, founded by Deutsche Telekom to develop a multi-vendor wireless solution for the

smart home market. The QIVICON platform offers a unified set of features for devices from different providers

including energy providers, household appliance vendors, telecoms companies and security solutions providers. The

QIVICON solution consists of a smart home platform, gateways, devices, apps and services. Deutsche Telekom is using

Remote Manager cloud service and gateway software to enable device management of its gateways, routers and

devices. The solution enables Deutsche Telekom to scale its deployments and remotely configure and monitor the

installed QIVICON Home Base units in addition to performing firmware updates.



OPPORTUNITIES

THREATS

STRENGTHS

WEAKNESSES

9

Analysis: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats

▪ Bosch Software Innovations has a good presence in the Asian-Pacific

market with locations in Singapore, Tokyo and Shanghai. The group as a

whole showed growth in the region and aims to double its sales there by

2020.

▪ Bosch’s recognition in the German market, supported by its newly added

local cloud hosting capabilities position the company as a trusted partner

for sensitive data applications such as healthcare.

▪ Bosch focuses on device management and relies on partners such as

PTC ThingWorx and Software AG to complement the IoT stack with

features like application enablement and advanced analytics. Such

partners are also competing directly with Bosch in the device

management layer.

▪ Despite the recent investments in edge analytics, Bosch has not made a

significate move to compete in this market. Other providers are eager to

promote such capabilities. Being late to support edge analytics features

can devalue Bosch’s IoT offering for industrial applications.

▪ Bosch’s ambition to build its own cloud infrastructure might slow its IoT

product development efforts.

▪ Bosch offers a comprehensive and modular device management solution

with multiple microservices offered at different pricing tiers. The

company has also built a large partner ecosystem.

▪ Bosch is experienced in the operational technologies and uses of the

platform internally with different group units. These support the

continuous development and refinement of the platform capabilities to

cope with the growth and changes in industrial applications

requirements.

▪ Bosch SI strong marketing efforts demonstrate its capabilities across

multiple channels including industrial events and social media.

▪ Although Bosch has its own IoT Cloud that is open to developers, the

company is yet to leverage its open platform approach and partner

ecosystem to establish an open app marketplace to accelerate the

platform adoption.

▪ Bosch does not provide details of many IoT use cases. Of those

showcased, the Remote Manager and ProSyst Gateway Software

components are the main functions highlighted. The rest of the services

such as IoT Analytics are not featured quite enough. Bosch needs to

increase the promotion of its other services, especially IoT Analytics



Ahmed Ali (Senior Analyst) is the lead analyst for Analysys Mason's IoT Platforms and Technology research programme. His research covers IoT

software, applications and solutions used by service providers to enable their IoT offerings. Prior to joining Analysys Mason, Ahmed worked as a

senior analyst at ABI Research for more than 3 years, where he was part of the next-generation mobile network research programme, covering

wireless and core mobile markets like small cells, in-building solutions, network virtualisation, unlicensed spectrum, and other 4G and 5G

technologies. Ahmed holds a master's degree in Electronics Communications and Computer Engineering from the University of Nottingham and

a bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Khartoum, Sudan.

10

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