GE Digital reportedly to unwind, but its marketing gave the industrial Internet a boost

By -
GE's grand plan to be a software giant appears to be over, but the company's marketing of IoT advanced the cause for a bevy of rivals such as C3 IoT.
General Electric is reportedly looking to sell its Predix and software assets as it retreats from a grand plan to be a tech company and leader of the industrial Internet.
According to The Wall Street Journal, GE will auction off its technology assets, which include ServiceMax, Meridium as well as Predix. Former CEO Jeff Immelt pushed a strategy to make GE a top 10 software company by 2020. That plan is now dead. Although GE will keep some software assets for its power and aerospace businesses, the company will shelve plans to be a major software provider.
When the history of the Internet of things is written, GE will be remembered not so much for Predix, but the marketing of its software. C3 IoT CEO Tom Siebel quipped to us in a previous interview that GE's marketing advanced his cause and the idea behind the industrial Internet more than his startup ever could. GE's marketing might alone--and the advertising that developers also could work for the company--raised awareness of the Internet of things.
GE's retreat from GE Digital looks shortsighted to me, but the company has larger issues that it needs to fix. Notably, GE needs to fix its balance sheet, focus and resize to survive and maybe even thrive. Detours into becoming a software company won't fly in that environment.

In many respects, GE's retreat is similar to Ford's. Ford is also retooling and honing its focus even though it led the charge into smart transportation and mobility. GE's Predix platform was already sucking wind so it's not like rivals such as Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, C3 IoT and IBM have any more market share to plow. What's likely to happen is that Honeywell and Siemens will gain software clout in industrial markets. Honeywell and Siemens have quietly pursued the GE strategy without the costs and marketing hub.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular Posts

Hacker steals data of millions of Bulgarians, emails it to local media

By -
Image
  Source of the data breach appears to be the country's National Revenue Agency A mysterious hacker has stolen the personal details of millions of Bulgarians and has emailed download links to the stolen data to local news publications. The data's origin is believed to be the country's National Revenue Agency (NRA), a department of the Bulgarian Ministry of Finance. In a  message posted on its website  on Monday, the NRA said it was working with the Ministry of the Interior and the State Agency for National Security (SANS) to investigate the hack. "We are currently verifying whether the data is real," said the NRA. Hours after this article's publication, the Bulgarian Ministry of the Interior  confirmed the hack . HACKER STOLE 110 DATABASES, LEAKED 57 According to reports from local media [ 1 ,  2 ,  3 ,  4 ,  5 ], who received part of the data, the hacker said they stole the personal details of over five million Bulgarians, of the country's total populatio
Read more

​Linux totally dominates supercomputers

By -
Image
It finally happened. Today, all 500 of the world's top 500 supercomputers are running Linux. Linux rules supercomputing. This day has been coming since 1998, when Linux first appeared on the TOP500 Supercomputer list . Today it finally happened:  All 500 of the world's fastest supercomputers are running Linux . The last two non-Linux systems, a pair of Chinese IBM POWER computers running AIX, dropped off the  November 2017 TOP500 Supercomputer list . Overall, China now leads the supercomputing race with 202 computers to the US' 144. China also leads the US in aggregate performance. China's supercomputers represent 35.4 percent of the Top500's flops, while the US trails with 29.6 percent. With an anti-science regime in charge of the government, America will only continue to see its technological lead decline. When the  first Top500 supercomputer list was compiled in June 1993 , Linux was barely more than a toy. It hadn't even adopted Tux as its masc
Read more

Microsoft tries to stem its self-made collaboration-tool confusion

By -
Image
Microsoft is using this week's Ignite conference to try to help clarify its collaboration-tool strategy. Here's how SharePoint, Teams and Yammer figure in the mix. Choice is good. But too much choice, especially when it comes to collaboration tools, has been a problem for Microsoft. This isn't news to customers, partners or Microsoft execs themselves. But at the company's Ignite IT Pro conference in Orlando this week, Microsoft execs took a step to try to clarify the company's strategy and messaging in this area. Microsoft Office 365 Marketing chief Ron Markezich kicked off the conference this week with a slide entitled "Microsoft 365 Teamwork: Where to Start a Conversation." That slide attempts to do what  Microsoft initially attempted with a 60-plus-page whitepaper : Clarify which collaboration tools customers should use when. The slide, which features SharePoint -- and its files, sites and content storage at the center -- is broken down into t
Read more