Apple and GE unveiled a new software development kit (SDK) to make data and analytics from the latter’s industrial IoT platform available on iOS devices.
The new Predix kit will allow developers to deliver industrial performance and operations insights on iPhone and iPad devices. In a joint statement, the companies explained workers will be able to use those apps to assess the operational status of industrial equipment, citing GE’s turbines and jet engines as examples.
Apple and GE said the apps will help companies reduce unplanned equipment downtime and yield cost savings. The move should also provide a much-needed boost to GE’s efforts to exploit growth in digital technologies: in August, the company told Reuters it aims to generate revenue of around $12 billion from its Predix digital effort in 2020.
“The partnership between Apple and GE is providing developers with the tools to make their own powerful industrial IoT apps,” GE CEO John Flannery said: “Our customers increasingly need to arm their workforces through mobility. Working together, GE and Apple are giving industrial companies access to powerful apps that help them tap into the predictive data and analytics of Predix right on their iPhone or iPad.”
Deeper ties
GE is already working on iOS apps for both its own use and external customers, including an asset performance management (APM) cases app which monitors asset health and risk mitigation.
But GE and Apple are deepening their ties even further, with the former committing to make Apple products the standard across its 330,000-strong workforce. In return, Apple will promote GE’s Predix platform as the ideal choice for industrial IoT analytics.
The partnership with Apple is far from the first GE has sealed in the telco space.
At Mobile World Congress 2016, GE announced AT&T, Verizon and Vodafone had joined its Digital Alliance Program as Predix connectivity-as-a-service providers, offering secure Predix Cloud connectivity for smart cities, railways and manufacturing plants.
New relationships
Dean Bubley, founder of consultancy Disruptive Analysis, noted in a Tweet the Apple and GE collaboration is the latest in a series of unique partnerships being fuelled by the industrial IoT push.
Interesting partnerships on industrial #IoT
– @Nokia + @Bosch
– @Apple + @GE_Digital
– @Cisco + @SchneiderElec
– @HuaweiEnt + various— Dean Bubley (@disruptivedean) October 19, 2017
The analyst’s mention of Nokia and Bosch refers to a partnership the companies announced on 18 October, which the pair said will deliverIoT devices to large logistics and industrial companies in early 2018.
