New Northern.tech Report Highlights Growing Strain on IoT Device Management Infrastructure

PALO ALTO, Calif., May 18, 2026 -- Northern.tech, the company behind Mender, today released its annual State of Industrial IoT Device Lifecycle Management report. The central finding of the report is clear: organizational ambitions for connected products are running well ahead of the systems built to support them. For many, the gap between business objectives and current device management capabilities is not a future challenge — it is already occurring.

"OEMs are scaling faster than their infrastructure," said Eystein Stenberg, CTO, Northern.tech. "With the EU CRA reporting obligations deadline later this year, now is the time. OEMs must address IoT device lifecycle management holistically, from product design to decommission."

The 2026 report highlights several key findings, including:

• Managing increasing complexity is pivotal to future success. Only 10% of OEMs describe their IoT products as single-device systems where the product and the device are effectively one and the same. The remaining 90% manage IoT products with multiple devices, and 85% of OEMs expect the number of devices in their products to grow over the next 12 months.
• An infrastructure failure looms on the horizon. More than half acknowledge that the infrastructure they rely on to manage their product footprint will not sustain the duration of anticipated growth. Nearly 3 in 5 OEMs expect their current device management infrastructure to be inadequate in 3 years or less, and for more than one tenth, that point of failure is less than a year away.
• Software remains the #1 source of product launch delays for the second consecutive year. The average IoT product now takes approximately 4.5 years to reach general availability, up 2.7 months year over year, even as time-to-market remains the most critical business priority.
• External scrutiny uncovers security and compliance gaps, creating market roadblocks. Regulatory and external delays jumped two positions in the rankings of causes of product launch delays. Leveraging external security audits grew 7% year over year, while self-reported security capabilities declined across all four metrics measured.

Actionable insights for holistically managing IoT devices across the full lifecycle

"Products, fleet management, security, compliance – these are not static elements in IoT. A secure product today does not mean it is secure tomorrow or next year," states Stenberg. "The product lines and the infrastructure supporting them must evolve in tandem with each other to maintain the level of security consumers, businesses, and regulatory bodies demand."

Current IoT practices are failing to keep pace with what OEMs require to succeed. Device lifecycle management is foundational to combat the challenges head-on. Engineers require it to embed security in design; product owners need it to ensure on-time product launches; the business relies on it to effectively compete. Organizations require the right infrastructure to securely manage IoT products – from design and testing to decommissioning, across heterogeneous fleets.

Download full 2026 State of Industrial IoT Device Lifecycle Management report.

Learn more about device lifecycle management.