NEWS
NEWS
NEWS
GE buying spree continues with AI, Internet of Things startups
Right on the heels of announcing one major acquisition, the $915 million buy of ServiceMax Inc., General Electric Corp. today added not one but two other acquisitions: machine learning startup Wise.io and data intelligence company Bit Stew Systems.
Wise.io specializes in predictive intelligence, which uses machine learning to anticipate upcoming events. The startup’s technology was initially used by astrophysicists to better understand rare stellar phenomena, but today Wise.io’s platform is used primarily for predicting and dealing with customer support issues. Wise.io’s algorithms anticipate high support request volume and smartly distributes tickets to deal with issues proactively.
According to GE, Wise.io’s technology will be folded into Predix, GE’s cloud-based Platform-as-a-Service that is used for industrial analytics and asset performance management. GE Chief Information Officer says that Wise.io’s machine learning technology will provide an enormous boost to GE’s own work in artificial intelligence for Predix.
Meanwhile, GE’s other acquisition, Bit Stew, provides a data intelligence platform powered by machine learning, which integrates data between industrial connected devices and external systems. Like Wise.io, Bit Stew’s platform will also be funneled into Predix.
“We are pleased to welcome Bit Stew to the GE Digital family. The integration of our technologies will provide the Predix platform with a greater capability to integrate data while it is in motion from the edge to the cloud,” said Harel Kodesh, CTO at GE Digital. “This combination will help us to accelerate our industrial offerings, providing customers with contextual understanding of their assets and operations.”
GE did not reveal how much it paid for Wise.io or Bit Stew, but the Vancouver Sun reported that the acquisition price for Bit Stew was over $207 million. Combined with the ServiceMax deal, this shows that GE is serious about beefing up Predix and making it the go-to Platform-as-a-Service for industrial applications.
GE’s Minds + Machines event this week in San Francisco will look at the current state of IoT. SiliconANGLE’s video unit theCUBE will be at the event to do exclusive interviews with GE and other executives.
Photo by UpstateNYer – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link
Since you’re here …
… We’d like to tell you about our mission and how you can help us fulfill it. SiliconANGLE Media Inc.’s business model is based on the intrinsic value of the content, not advertising. Unlike many online publications, we don’t have a paywall or run banner advertising, because we want to keep our journalism open, without influence or the need to chase traffic.The journalism, reporting and commentary on SiliconANGLE — along with live, unscripted video from our Silicon Valley studio and globe-trotting video teams at theCUBE — take a lot of hard work, time and money. Keeping the quality high requires the support of sponsors who are aligned with our vision of ad-free journalism content.
If you like the reporting, video interviews and other ad-free content here, please take a moment to check out a sample of the video content supported by our sponsors, tweet your support, and keep coming back to SiliconANGLE.
