The hottest Siemens Industrial cloud China's futur

After two years of market publicity, the industrial IOT operating system mindsphere launched by German manufacturing giant Siemens finally officially entered China

on April 2, Siemens announced during the industrial exhibition in Hannover, Germany that the official version of its IOT operating system mindsphere was successfully deployed and put into operation on Alibaba cloud on April 1. Rhein Koster, zhongyeda electric and Shanghai Shangshi longchuang became the first Chinese customers to sign an agreement with mindsphere

coo Jan mrosik of Siemens digital industry group introduced that at present, mindsphere has more than 1100 users worldwide and more than 300 partners in its ecosystem. As of September 2018, more than 1.3 million devices are connected to mindsphere

now, after a long wait, this industry focused industrial Internet platform has finally entered China, but its future in China is still unknown

two years after entering China

mindsphere is an open IOT operating system first proposed by Siemens during the 2016 Hannover industrial exhibition. It is an integral part of Siemens' digital solutions. It can provide equipment and enterprises with data connection options and corresponding applications. Industrial enterprises can optimize processes, reduce costs, and An instrumental platform for the purpose of improving business efficiency

Siemens' mindsphere and General Electric (GE) launched predix earlier are two representative products that large and small enterprises have paid attention to, studied and even imitated in the upsurge of industrial interconnection in China in recent years. The concept of industrial IOT operating system proposed by them indicates the direction of innovation in the industrial field. However, in the Chinese market, the process of transforming technology concepts into real businesses has not been smooth for both companies

mindsphere provides platform services (PAAS) from the cloud technology architecture. It cooperates with manufacturers providing infrastructure services (IAAs) and develops customer-oriented software services (SaaS) on the platform

due to the requirements of domestic data supervision, foreign cloud platforms need to find local partners for the tensile testing machine of thermal insulation materials when landing in China, which is mainly used for the tensile, contraction, zigzag and other experiments of metal, non-metal and other materials, and Siemens does not have the operation right of the platform in China. Previously, Ge took the lead in finalizing domestic partners and signed an agreement with Chinatelecom in March 2017. However, since then, GE's operation has become increasingly difficult, and its digital business has also shrunk significantly. Finally, an independent brand wholly owned by GE was established at the end of 2018. Its business is mainly internal to ge and will not expand outward. Predix in China is no longer followed

Siemens' industrial cloud business was launched later than Ge, but thanks to Siemens' more perfect automation (mainly PLC) and industrial software (mainly PLM) business, its implementation is more closely connected with Siemens' existing business. In terms of IAAs service providers, Siemens has reached cooperation with SAP, Amazon and Microsoft around the world, especially in January 2018, after mindsphere was upgraded to version 3.0, it became a more mature version, and its partners are mainly Amazon and Microsoft

in the Chinese market, Siemens began the market cultivation of mindsphere after the 2017 Hannover industrial exhibition. However, on the specific implementation of a carbon nanotube functional material developed by British researchers, Siemens first experienced a long process of IAAs partner selection. Finally, during the visit of Premier Li Keqiang to Germany in July 2018, Siemens announced that it had reached a cooperation with Alibaba, and mindsphere would be deployed on Alibaba cloud in China. Finally, on April 1 this year, this cooperation finally landed and welcomed the first three domestic customers

public information shows that among the three Chinese customers signed by Siemens mindsphere at the Hannover industrial exhibition, Rhein Koster is an intelligent manufacturing education service institution headquartered in Munich, Germany, which has a Chinese headquarters in Qingdao, China, and training centers in many cities in China

zhongyeda electric and Shanghai Shangshi longchuang are domestic medium-sized enterprises. Zhongyeda Electric is a distributor and system integrator of industrial components, and has its own manufacturing business. Its revenue in 2018 was 8.54 billion yuan and its profit was 273million yuan. Shanghai Shangshi longchuang is a subsidiary of Shangshi development, a listed company. Its business is mainly energy-saving services, HVAC equipment and water treatment. In 2018, its revenue was 2.38 billion yuan and its profit was 105 million yuan

it took two years to finally land, during which the upsurge of domestic industrial interconnection was rising, various platforms emerged in endlessly, and the market competition became increasingly fierce. Is Siemens mindsphere too slow to enter China? Facing the question of Caijing, Wang Haibin, general manager of Siemens' Greater China digital industry group, explained that entering the Chinese market must comply with regulations. It takes time to find partners, evaluate technical capabilities, and conduct technical verification after selecting Alibaba cloud. From the signing of the agreement between the two companies in Berlin on July 5 last year to the official landing on April 1, the process has been relatively smooth. In addition, alibaba will also be the domestic operator of mindsphere

local deployment challenges

Caijing integrated the views of Siemens, manufacturing enterprises and domestic industrial interconnection practitioners, which have led the country of the Orient for several times. According to the analysis, for mindsphere, which has just been launched in China, all parties recognize the deep accumulation of Siemens' industrial field and the technical capabilities of its platform, but its local deployment capabilities Price and target user strategy will affect the prospects of its business in China

local deployment capability is the biggest challenge faced by mindsphere in China at present. It refers to whether the platform can be deployed on private cloud or users' own servers. During his stay in Hanover, Wang Haibin confirmed to Caijing that mindsphere in China will be deployed on the public cloud, including two types of users with developer accounts

for industrial enterprises, data security, especially the data involving core processes, is the core concern of many enterprises in the digital transformation, and the most direct way to dispel this doubt is to ensure that the data does not go beyond their own control. Therefore, many domestic manufacturing enterprises and companies engaged in industrial interconnection business contacted by Caijing previously said that the platform data would not be on the public cloud. The relevant person in charge of a domestic new energy manufacturing enterprise once told Caijing that when choosing the platform, it gave up mindsphere because of the lack of local deployment ability

for mindsphere, its local deployment capability has experienced a process from scratch in the global business, but it is not yet available in China. Mindsphere has successively reached cooperation with the world's two largest cloud infrastructure service providers. Amazon came first and Microsoft came later. In response to the question of Caijing on its local deployment capability in September 2018, Jan mrosik, chief operating officer of Siemens digital industry group, said that the local deployment scheme should be provided by IAAs service providers, and mindsphere can invoke this function. Previously, Amazon AWS did not provide local deployment scheme, However, the azure stack technology included in Microsoft azure cloud platform can support local deployment, which is also an important driving force for Siemens' cooperation with Microsoft azure

in China, since mindsphere is deployed on Alibaba cloud's public cloud, local deployment is still impossible. In this regard, Wang Haibin told Caijing that the needs of enterprises are diverse. Some users, especially some large enterprises, will want to deploy locally, but a large number of small and medium-sized enterprises, and even some large enterprises with open minds, are willing to do it on the public cloud

in general, several realities on local deployment are that, on the one hand, public cloud is one of the long-term technology trends in data. In recent years, the core components of traditional IT systems of enterprises, including enterprise resource management (ERP) and product lifecycle management (PLM), have also gradually shown the trend of cloud, and with the development of communication technology, the transformation of transmission rate and bandwidth, The cost of using public cloud will be further reduced; On the other hand, the current concern of industrial enterprises about data security is also an unavoidable reality, especially compared with it and Internet enterprises, industrial enterprises will be more cautious about data cloud; Third, enterprises with a certain scale, especially large enterprises, traditional industry enterprises and state-owned enterprises, often have their own it teams and server bases, and at this stage will be more inclined to deploy locally. However, if many small and medium-sized enterprises invest in building private clouds or servers by themselves, it is not cost-effective, and they are relatively more willing to apply cloud technology. At this time, the information security capabilities of large companies are relatively more trustworthy

in this reality, Siemens needs to ensure the data security of its mindsphere users and demonstrate its ability in data security; At the same time, we also need to gradually cultivate the market and guide customers to the cloud; Users who have a strong demand for local deployment, especially large enterprise users, need to consider cooperating with Alibaba cloud to develop the ability to deploy mindsphere on private cloud, which also means more human and capital investment. Another solution is to introduce cooperation with Microsoft azure cloud platform in China

doubts about data sovereignty

when talking about data security, Jan mrosik, chief operating officer of Siemens digital industry group, stressed that the data in mindsphere belongs to the owner of equipment and factories, and Siemens will not view these data. From a technical point of view, these data are stored in a specific storage space, and Siemens cannot get it. In particular, he emphasized to Caijing that mindsphere is not a data-driven business model. For example, social networking sites will use user data to do something, but this is not the business model of mindsphere

during the period of Hannover, another breakthrough of Siemens' mindsphere was to reach a cooperation with Volkswagen Germany to build an industrial cloud. Siemens and its suppliers were responsible for expanding mindsphere to Volkswagen Industrial cloud and providing edge computing solutions. Volkswagen and Amazon AWS jointly developed Volkswagen Industrial cloud. At present, Volkswagen is the largest and most well-known enterprise in the public information about mindsphere cooperation released by Siemens

combined with the above statement of Jan mrosik and the tripartite cooperation between Siemens, Volkswagen and Amazon, it can be seen that mindsphere is one of the tools for users to carry out digital transformation. Therefore, the tool itself should not rely on data for profit. Data still creates value, but this is mainly for users using AWS and mindsphere

Ralf Michael Franke, CEO of factory automation department of Siemens digital industry group, made a further explanation in combination with Volkswagen's cooperation during his stay in Hanover. He said that the data and analysis results belong to Volkswagen. Siemens and Amazon only help Volkswagen better apply technology on the platform and improve the value of analysis results, and will not use these data; If the application program born in the process of cooperation is shared with the outside world, it cannot contain the key processes of the factory. It can also be sold to Daimler, Geely and other peers, but a contract needs to be signed to specify the owner of the application and the profit sharing method

in the long Warring States period

it is difficult for Siemens to replicate its comprehensive cooperation with enterprises such as Volkswagen and Amazon in China. This cooperation can not be achieved without two German enterprises, Siemens and Volkswagen