What Is GE Predix?

GE launched Predix, its cloud-based platform-as-a-service (PaaS) targeted at the Internet of Things (IoT), in 2015. The platform is designed to help network, manage, and analyze vast amounts of data collected from industrial devices to help automate operations.

GE hopes that Predix can be the "brain" of Industrial IoT (IIoT) by running big data analytics programs that can optimize functions such as maintenance and failure prediction. The Predix platform is based on the Cloud Foundry open-source technology and built on a microservices architecture. A microservices approach allows software to be built on small distributed software components that can be quickly updated and synchronized in the cloud.

Predix has been introduced with great fanfare and marketing power, as GE and its investors hope it will be instrumental in allowing GE to assist large manufacturing companies with digitization while at the same time moving GE deeper into the software and technology space. Analysts believe the Predix tool can drive growth of GE's digital services business. GE Digital has stated at investor meetings that it expects to grow 20 percent CAGR (2016-20) with sales of $15 billion by 2020.

GE hopes to leverage its expertise in manufacturing and operations to drive the growth of Predix by providing analytics and optimization services for clients. The company expects its Predix platform to contribute $4 billion in revenue by 2020 using industrial applications such as Asset Performance Management (APM) and Brilliant Manufacturing.

GE had already invested about $2 billion in Predix as of late 2016, according to Goldman Sachs, and it is expected to make further investments in the business. In addition to further developing the software, GE hopes to drive a developer community to more than 20,000 and have more than 50 partners by 2016. In July of 2016, GE partnered with Microsoft to add support for GE’s Predix platform on Microsoft Azure in order to leverage its enterprise applications.

These moves are all part of a wider land grab for the IoT led by leading technology and cloud players such as GE, Cisco, Microsoft, Amazon, and others. McKinsey has estimated that the IoT has a total potential economic impact of $3.9 trillion to $11.1 trillion a year by 2025. Industrial data is growing twice as fast as any other sector, according to Cisco Systems.

For a more detailed, professional analysis of the IIoT market, purchase our 50-page Ultimate Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) Report, which covers a wide range of communications and cloud technologies that are being applied to businesses around the world to provide connectivity, analysis, automation, and optimization of a range of industrial applications.