Industry app store ‘opens to everyone’

GE Digital’s chief technology officer Harel Kodesh, who is also one of the platform’s architects, said that to unlock Predix’s full potential, it had to be opened to developers outside of GE.

We are only taking industrial players. It’s not because our systems cannot run social apps, but we want to make sure that the cloud is as sterile as it can be for the industrial internet

GE Digital chief technology officer Harel Kodesh

“After all, where would the consumer app and solution ecosystem be without communities of external developers building for iOS, Android or Linux,” Kodesh said.

The Predix platform is touted as 'an app store for the industrial internet' and is intended to work with plant maintenance systems the same way Apple’s IOS operating system does with mobile phones.

The ‘platform as a service’ (PaaS) technology can be used by both suppliers and consumers, and is designed to help its customers better manage their industrial equipment, much of which now requires connection to the internet for monitoring.

“We are only taking industrial players. It’s not because our systems cannot run social apps, but we want to make sure that the cloud is as sterile as it can be for the industrial internet,” Kodesh said.

As part of its initial launch last year, GE demonstrated some of the apps that can be used on the Predix platform.

One of these is Digital Power Plant, which can recommend ways of using equipment more efficiently by using sensors that have already been installed around power plants to analyse data.

Another app that works with Predix is Brilliant Factory, which offers GE’s digital manufacturing capabilities to other companies, to help them reduce unplanned downtime.

Digital Alliance

Predix was officially ‘opened to everyone’ this morning at the Mobile World Congress trade show in Barcelona, where GE also formed a ‘Digital Alliance’ with companies such as Intel and Infosys.

“The members [of the digital alliance] will deploy Predix directly and also through allies like telecommunications service providers that are not going to compete with us,” Kodesh said.

“They see Predix as a revenue stream and a valid business opportunity. They both serve different needs, and they are both doing great,” he added.