GE Launches Predix Cloud

New service will bring Big Data to factories and other industrial systems

The famed electronics maker GE has announced that it is launching a new cloud system, which the company is calling the “World's First Cloud Service Built for Industrial Data Analytics.” The Predix cloud is a Platform-as-a-Service system that will “… capture and analyze the unique volume, velocity, and variety of machine data within a highly secure, industrial-strength cloud environment.”

The network will focus on bringing Big Data techniques to the industrial infrastructure, delivering “… more value to machines, fleets, and factories, and enabling a thriving developer community to collaborate and rapidly deploy industrial applications in a highly protected environment.”

Like Amazon and similar companies that have drifted into the cloud business from other sectors, GE apparently hopes to leverage their investment in the technology they created for their own products by offering their software tools to the world through cloud services. The announcement also shows the spread of Big Data to yet another segment of the commercial economy.