Edge Computing Moving from Concept to Reality Across Many US Businesses According to New Study

Industries Including Tech, Manufacturing, Financial Services, and More Embracing the Edge to Improve Efficiencies, Enhance Security and Reduce Costs

Foster City, CA – November 28, 2017: The concept of “edge computing” has been discussed within the tech industry for several years, but the reality is that many organizations are just starting to get serious about their usage and deployment plans for the edge, according to a new study released today by TECHnalysis Research. A complex—and sometimes misunderstood—topic, edge computing is generally defined as the work done by a combination of endpoint and access devices that leverage their physical proximity to machines, people and processes. Edge devices perform tasks traditionally done in the cloud, as well as new ones created in recognition of their unique location. Fundamentally, it’s a new computing architecture that’s redefining how companies are thinking about building modern applications from autonomous driving, to predictive maintenance, to asset tracking, and beyond.

“Almost 1/2 of companies who participated in the study said they had worked on edge computing for over 2 years,” commented TECHnalysis Research President Bob O’Donnell, “but when you dig into the types of efforts they’ve been doing, it’s clear that much of it was a simple evolution of existing work they’ve done in managing network access and security. The more interesting work in sensor-based data analytics and new types of edge computing applications are just starting to appear.”

The study includes the results from a recently completed online survey of 600 US business professionals—313 from large enterprises of 1,000 or more employees, and 287 from medium-sized companies with between 100 and 999 employees—who are involved with edge computing applications within their organizations. The goal of the study was to understand what types of computing architectures companies are deploying on the edge of their networks, what applications companies plan to deploy at the edge, who within the company is doing the deployments, and what types of workloads are being accomplished, among other things.

One of the important findings from the study is that companies are focused on very practical goals for their edge computing efforts. While enabling new types of applications did make the top 5 of edge computing goals (see Figure 1), more tactical benefits such as improving efficiencies and increasing security topped the list.


Fig. 1

The most popular applications being deployed on the edge (see Figure 2) also highlight the practical approaches that many organizations are taking with edge computing. “Over 60% of the early efforts in edge computing are being partially or fully migrated from the cloud,” noted Bob O’Donnell, chief analyst at TECHnalysis Research, “which means that companies are growing into the possibilities of edge computing slowly. Nevertheless, they clearly recognize the potential that innovative technology can bring to critical business tasks, such as monitoring their operations and assets.”


Fig. 2

Other topics covered in the study include details on the analytics being done by different applications, the types of devices and software technologies being leveraged in edge computing applications, purchase plans and preferences for edge computing-related products and services, cloud platforms used with edge computing, and more.

A summary version of the TECHnalysis Research Edge Computing Study is available in PDF format and can be downloaded for free here. The complete 104-slide version of the report with detailed breakdowns for every question is available for purchase. For additional information, please e-mail the author at bob@technalysisresearch.com.

Founded by technology market research veteran Bob O’Donnell, TECHnalysis Research, LLC provides strategic consulting and market research services to the technology industry and professional financial community. Building on a deep understanding of critical technology and business trends, in conjunction with hard-hitting, original research, the firm provides unique "out-of-the-box" perspectives that are still grounded in the practical realities of the technology, media and telecom markets.

You can download a copy of this press release in Adobe Acrobat format here.