The hottest industrial Internet is foggy

Industrial interconnection is shrouded in fog

ge further deals with some assets of predix. There is only one posture: sell. GE's many troubles in the process of digital transformation, mixed with Chinese carnival, Japanese silence and German prudence, have left a puzzle for industrial interconnection

the industrial interconnection platform stepped on the thunder again

Ge made another move last Tuesday, completely giving up the efforts of the industrial interconnection platform. This time it sold most of its stake in pivot, a developer of PAAS (platform as a service). Its famous container technology, cloud foundry, is the most important underlying pillar to help Ge build an industrial interconnection platform

this sale should not be surprising. The former chief business officer of Ge digital, who was also a member of pivot's board of directors, resigned in September and left Ge a month later

an earlier omen is that GE formed an alliance with Microsoft cloud azure in July this year. At that time, it means that this burden can be thrown away

industrial interconnection presents a different picture all over the world

in Germany, Japan and the United States, the industrial application of IOT is developing rapidly. German industry 4.0 has been actively benchmarking with industrial interconnection since the beginning. Heavyweight companies such as Siemens and Bosch have launched their own industrial interconnection schemes. But compared with the high-profile in the digital factory, Siemens' promotion in this field is as cautious as aunt mo. In Japan, almost all important manufacturing industries are using IOT technology to tap the potential of various machine efficiency on the workshop site, which is the favorite of Japanese entrepreneurs. However, almost no one jumped out and claimed to be a platform: Japan almost lost its voice on the industrial Internet platform. In the United States, all the high-profile seems to be focused on the Ge family, and others are followers

in the end, it seems that only the initiator of industrial interconnection detonated by stepping on thunder

in China, this positioned industrial Internet platform has become an industrial star. And there are many lottery winners. It is certainly too early to say that China's industry has successfully overtaken the car this time, but so many small red flowers are naturally full of doubts

of course, for GE, the disaster caused by its caretaker predix has been unfairly exaggerated by the outside world. Just like the investment in pivot five years ago, Ge made a net profit of nearly $200million. The return rate is 170%, which is still great. GE has some problems other than industrial interconnection. Chinese people selectively attribute other mistakes of Ge to its digital transformation

industrial interconnection is neither so good nor so bad. But the craze in China is the most worrying thing. Will it be magnified inexplicably

the Jianghu of industrial interconnection is full of fog

concept violence has hit made in China

the manufacturing industry has been full of concept bubbles in recent years, which are colorful and make people feel unable to grasp. In the past few days, what is happening again is industrial interconnection

on October 31, Tencent held a global partner conference to build a demonstration project of intelligent manufacturing technology in the field of modified high molecular materials in China. The day before yesterday, Ma Huateng released this year's open letter on time according to the usual practice. The views expressed in it were amazing. The second half of mobile Internet was industrial interconnection. It is controversial that the fierce battle of mobile Internet is in full swing. Why did it happen in the second half? Can the interconnection serving industry take over the interconnection serving consumers and become a better tomorrow

over the past year, industrial interconnection has been a mainstream recognized concept, while industrial interconnection has been suppressed and has been circulated and used in a very narrow range. Many people even think that industrial interconnection is a pseudo concept. The industrial interconnection proposed by Tencent once again makes its boundary with industrial interconnection the focus of attention

the industrial Internet proposed by GE does have both industrial and industrial meanings. But in China, the boundary between the two is very different

at the same time, there are also some fierce battles in other areas. Is industrial interconnection surnamed workers or surnames. These seemingly trivial concepts are quite true, and they often fight in the air

this is one of the most confusing phenomena in China's manufacturing industry in the past three years. Conceptual violence has spread all over China. From intelligent manufacturing to industrial interconnection, at the extreme, we don't even know which category is bigger? What is the difference behind the integration of industrialization and industrialization, the deep integration of industrialization and industrialization, and the integration of manufacturing and interconnection? Many people don't know

in China, the meaning of intelligent manufacturing cannot be widely recognized; The real value that industrial interconnection platform brings to enterprises has not been certified much in practice. However, the General Assembly war has begun. This phenomenon can be called consensus free promotion. Enterprises have no consensus to promote, don't worry, the market has its own hoop curse; If the government vigorously promotes it without consensus, it is a matter worthy of vigilance. Worryingly, the baton has been waving brilliantly, and the corresponding policy incentives roared out

here is a different world

industry uses IT technology to promote the digital process. The author summarizes it into three stages: internalization, externalization and plug-in

figure | the three stages of the digital process (original and self drawn by the author)

the first thing on the road is enterprise informatization. Internalization is the demand for business connectivity within an enterprise, and it is used to connect businesses. This is the inherent demand of the enterprise. The emergence of the first financial system in the world was developed by General Electric Company of the United States. In the process of internalization, different systems are widely used in various departments of enterprises. During this period, a large number of isolated islands were also produced

externalization is a process of extending the value chain to users. It can be seen as a kind of service-oriented manufacturing industry. This process needs strong control over the software development ability of enterprises and the operation mechanism of downstream users. The first to create this model was the British RORO engine. In the late 1990s, this secret weapon began to gain momentum. Ge engines were confused and important customers including All Nippon Airways and Singapore Airlines were lost one after another. This externalization strategy was later adopted by China's manufacturing industry, such as Baosteel's Baoxin from the Information Department of Baosteel and QIMINGXING from FAW Group. In recent years, the industry has actively transformed and upgraded traditional processes to serve its own enterprises, and is also doing various projects to generate income. The solutions provided by predix are originally software combinations of externalized services. If you don't drag it to be an industrial Internet platform, it would be a fitting dress

the plug-in is to enable the digitalization process of the whole industry. It presents completely different characteristics from externalization based on value chain expansion. The sharp industry gap and the changeable processes of enterprises are huge gaps for the platform. Most importantly, its business logic has changed. A traditional manufacturing industry needs to appear as an all-round operator. Many ambitious entrepreneurs have ignored this radical change. As an excellent manufacturing company, does Foxconn really support it to become an operational company? The same torture was left to those excellent manufacturing industries on the Changqing list: Haier, Midea, XCMG, Zoomlion, etc. Every company committed to a new role needs to ask such questions: is organizational change ready to deal with a new business model

if you mix externalization with plug-in, you will suffer a lot

the Japanese have spent a lot of effort on externalization, but they are reluctant to take it out for plug-in. Komatsu construction machinery began to develop a GPS based remote monitoring visualization system, kangchashi, in 1990, and the number of connected equipment reached 200000 in 2004. Komatsu's externalized service, mentioned by Komatsu president Masahiro sakasone in his later memoirs, enabled Komatsu to gain insight into the trend of China's implementation of tightening regulation and the imminent decline of construction machinery from the operation of the machine itself in 2004. The excavator index, which has gained popularity in China in the past two years, is regarded as the magic of industrial interconnection platforms. In fact, this is just a tribute to retro. Hitachi global eservice, as a model of machine connectivity and cloud computing, has long been widely used. IOT is just a new and more suitable tool. Other IOT solutions, including NEC and Toshiba, are actively explored and applied in the manufacturing industry. However, as a prudent old industrial driver, the Japanese will never use PPT to do business, and few people will mention empowering the industry

ge launched the plug-in platform predix with great fanfare, which inspired the whole industry, but also damaged its reputation

some people may question whether PTC, as an industrial Internet platform, is not favored by Wall Street and various consulting companies? In fact, on closer examination, the two are not the same thing at all. This is the confusion brought by the industrial Internet platform. It is like a big basket, including everything. This concept of opening is as broad as the sea, and the differences between how many rich marine species have been wiped out

upgrading is risky, and empowerment needs to be cautious

in fact, it is not the first time that

predix has appeared. For GE, it is a kind of destiny. Because this is not GE's first plug-in impulse

as early as 1980, Ge purchased the most famous CAD design software company at that time: Calma from United Telecom (now the predecessor of Sprint). The latter was super in the field of mechanical design and factory design software at that time, but it was not a long-term plan to become a popular niche. In the early 1980s, GE was obsessed with a new magic of automation integration, called future factory. It integrates the technical components of robots, machine tools, drives and communications into a single provider: Ge is happy to play such a role. Calma, the software, perfectly connects product design with automatic production. Ge executives believe that this can provide a one-stop automatic chemical plant for large industrial enterprises

this top-ranking project, which is highly expected by GE, cost US $1billion (1980s!), Seven years later, it faded away

the person who started the future factory is Welch, the world's best CEO. At that time, Welch had just taken office at GE. That was when he was later called the neutron bomb. Think about how amazing the dream of industrial interconnection predix is similar to the future factory more than 30 years ago. It seems that Welch must have told this story when he handed over the CEO's seal to Immelt. Moreover, he should only talk about the beginning, but hide the end

history is not in awe, but reality often overturns. At present, the fate of Ge digital should not be in suspense. Two recent businesses related to industrial interconnection, current LED, the popular department for smart city and commercial lighting, and the important department that also needs to quickly integrate effective information automation in the face of a large amount of complex information and data (including the acquisition of some automation businesses of Alstom), will face the fate of sale. It's not necessarily a bad thing for GE. If you give up the universal line of plug-in platforms