SAP, HPE, Hitachi, Salesforce muscle in on IoT

The past week has seen some very big names in the enterprise software game announce new plans for selling IoT products and services. SAP has revealed IoT kit for its HANA Cloud platform, HP Enterprise has launched the Universal IoT Platform, Hitachi has unveiled its Lumada IoT platform, and Salesforce has decided to use AWS to run its upcoming IoT Cloud. The move sets the stage for further consolidation in the technology markets. The semiconductor marketplace in particular has seen the most visible M&A activity, but the application platform and cloud software market seems ripe for similar acquisitions – as the existing giants of the software industry wake up to the potential scope of the IoT, and acquire the smaller…