????本周早些時(shí)候，通用電氣公司（General Electric）宣布，在一家名為Pivotal的新平臺(tái)即服務(wù)提供商投資1.05億美元，后者是由硬件設(shè)備公司EMC和虛擬化軟件開(kāi)發(fā)商VMware聯(lián)合成立的一家新公司。通用電氣此舉用意何在？通用電氣的未來(lái)至少在一定程度上取決于它能否批量生產(chǎn)軟件與服務(wù)，為其所銷售的日益智能化的設(shè)備提供支持。通用電氣希望，通過(guò)注資Pivotal，公司可以有一個(gè)更好的途徑來(lái)為客戶快速開(kāi)發(fā)、部署大數(shù)據(jù)商務(wù)應(yīng)用。

????通用電氣全球軟件中心副總裁兼公司官員比爾?拉赫說(shuō)：“眾所周知，我們的大部分利潤(rùn)源自支持設(shè)備的服務(wù)。隨著設(shè)備日益智能化，我們的客戶也希望提高設(shè)備與人員的生產(chǎn)效率?！?/p>

????實(shí)際上，通用電氣的服務(wù)部門已經(jīng)為公司帶來(lái)了約450億美元收入。據(jù)拉赫透露，公司將利用Pivotal的技術(shù)作為未來(lái)提供數(shù)據(jù)分析與云架構(gòu)的一種標(biāo)準(zhǔn)源。隨著裝有傳感器的智能設(shè)備（即通用電氣所謂的“工業(yè)互聯(lián)網(wǎng)”）的增加，從航空業(yè)到醫(yī)療行業(yè)，公司的客戶都在收集前所未有的海量數(shù)據(jù)。這些數(shù)據(jù)可以讓客戶更好地管理自己的設(shè)備，減少燃料消耗，優(yōu)化維護(hù)與操作。當(dāng)然，前提是他們有適當(dāng)?shù)膽?yīng)用，可以快速計(jì)算數(shù)字，同時(shí)形成可行的見(jiàn)解。而這正是通用電氣的切入點(diǎn)。

????拉赫稱：“從互聯(lián)網(wǎng)的客戶一方身上，比如谷歌（Google）、Facebook和亞馬遜（Amazon）等，我們學(xué)到了重要的一點(diǎn)。這些公司都解決了如何管理大量信息的問(wèn)題，同時(shí)還利用這些信息來(lái)提供新型服務(wù)?！?/p>

????通用電氣正在大力發(fā)展軟件技術(shù)，這已經(jīng)不是什么秘密。去年，在距離硅谷腹地不遠(yuǎn)的加州圣拉蒙市，公司專門成立了一個(gè)負(fù)責(zé)軟件開(kāi)發(fā)的部門。拉赫表示，公司在灣區(qū)的辦事處目前聘用了約425人，所有人都在研究“下一代服務(wù)提供”。通用電氣首席執(zhí)行官杰夫?伊梅爾特最近宣布，公司將投資10億美元，用于開(kāi)發(fā)將設(shè)備診斷與分析相結(jié)合的應(yīng)用。公司表示，這些新的軟件工具可以為能源和交通等主要行業(yè)減少1,500億美元浪費(fèi)，（例如，為一架飛機(jī)安裝傳感器和智能軟件可以減少不必要的維護(hù)費(fèi)用）。通用電氣計(jì)劃在2013年發(fā)布20款新興工業(yè)互聯(lián)網(wǎng)服務(wù)技術(shù)。

????通用電氣公司投資1.05億美元獲得了Pivotal公司10%的股份。目前，Pivotal公司的負(fù)責(zé)人是VMware公司前任CEO保羅?馬瑞茲。馬瑞茲表示，Pivotal維持云獨(dú)立性，它意味著這個(gè)新的開(kāi)發(fā)平臺(tái)不僅包含亞馬遜（Amazon）、微軟（Microsoft）和VMware等公司的云服務(wù)內(nèi)容，而且還能允許各公司在自己的服務(wù)器上運(yùn)行商務(wù)應(yīng)用。

????馬瑞茲提到公司的使命是成為“新時(shí)代的新平臺(tái)”，這是一個(gè)野心勃勃的目標(biāo)。而公司要想證明自己，很可能要等到數(shù)年之后——Pivotal在2013年底才會(huì)發(fā)布第一款產(chǎn)品。不過(guò)，它確實(shí)擁有許多令人印象深刻的支持者。本周早些時(shí)候，在Pivotal在舊金山舉辦的推廣活動(dòng)上，拉赫稱：“我們認(rèn)為，Pivotal將是一位非常重要的合作伙伴。這個(gè)平臺(tái)將幫助我們開(kāi)發(fā)下一代數(shù)據(jù)驅(qū)動(dòng)應(yīng)用?！庇辛薖ivotal的幫助，通用電氣能否以谷歌（Google）和Facebook的速度，大量開(kāi)發(fā)應(yīng)用？誰(shuí)知道呢！至少他們投入的1.05億美元也算是花在了刀刃上。（財(cái)富中文網(wǎng)）

????譯者：劉進(jìn)龍/汪皓

????Earlier this week, General Electric (GE) announced it is investing $105 million in a new platform-as-a-service provider called Pivotal, a spinoff of EMC (EMC) and VMware (VMW). Why? GE's future at least partly relies on its ability to keep churning out software and services to support the increasingly smart machines it sells. With Pivotal, GE hopes it will have a better way to quickly build and deploy big data business applications for its customers.

????"It's well known that a lot of our profits come out of the services that support our machines," says Bill Ruh, VP and corporate officer of GE's Global Software Center. "Machines are getting smarter, and our customers are demanding greater productivity for their machines and their people."

????Indeed, GE's services group already brings in roughly $45 billion in revenue. According to Ruh, the company will use Pivotal's technologies as a standard source for delivering data analytics and cloud architecture in the future. From aviation to health care, the company's customers are now collecting unprecedented amounts of data, due to a growing number of intelligent, sensor-equipped machines -- what GE calls the "industrial Internet." These terabytes of data could enable customers to better manage their machines, utilizing less fuel and optimizing maintenance and operations -- that is, of course, if they have the right apps to quickly crunch the numbers and spew out actionable insights. That's where GE comes in.

????"We're taking a lesson from the consumer side of the internet -- the Googles, Facebooks and the Amazons," says Ruh. "These businesses figured out how to manage large volumes of information and utilize it to provide new kinds of services."

????It's no secret that GE is making a big push in software. Last year the company opened a facility dedicated to software development in San Ramon, Calif. -- not far from the heart of Silicon Valley. Ruh says the Bay Area office now employs about 425 people, all working on "next-generation service offerings." And GE chief executive officer Jeff Immelt recently announced he will invest $1 billion in developing applications that combine machine diagnostics and analytics. The company says these new software tools have the potential to cut $150 billion in waste across major industries like energy and transportation (equipping an airplane with sensors and smart software, for example, could cut down on unnecessary maintenance). GE plans to launch 20 new industrial Internet service technologies in 2013.

????The company's $105 million investment gives it a 10% stake in Pivotal, which is headed by the former CEO of VMware, Paul Maritz. Maritz says Pivotal will be cloud-independent, meaning the new development platform can sit on top of cloud offerings from Amazon (AMZN), Microsoft (MSFT), and, of course, VMware. It can also let companies run business apps on their own servers.

????It's an ambitious goal, becoming a "new platform for a new era," as Maritz referred to the company's mission. It's also, in all likelihood, still years away from proving itself -- Pivotal won't release its first product until late 2013. But the company certainly has some impressive backers. "We think Pivotal will be an important partner," Ruh said at Pivotal's coming-out event in San Francisco earlier this week. "This is the platform for us to do these next-generation, data driven applications." Will GE be able to churn out applications as fast as Google (GOOG) and Facebook (FB), with a little help from Pivotal? Who knows. At least they're putting their money -- $105 million, to be exact -- where their mouth is.