Siemens Factory Automation Acquiring Pixeom's Edge Platform

Siemens is planning the acquisition of software company Pixeom’s Edge platform. With this action, Siemens aims to strengthen its own Industrial Edge portfolio by adding software components for Edge runtime and for device management. Siemens intends to acquire this technology from Pixeom and use it in the Factory Automation business unit, which is part of Siemens Digital Industries. Closing of the transaction is planned for the fourth quarter of 2019. 

Siemens Industrial Edge provides an ecosystem, which enables the flexible provision and use of apps. This means for example that appropriate apps can analyze data locally at the machine and send relevant data to the higher-level Industrial Edge Management System for global analytics. With the resulting Industrial Edge ecosystem, industrial companies can use production data even more efficiently and react more flexibly to changes in conditions, the company says.

“Technologies such as edge computing open up new scope for automation. With Siemens Industrial Edge, we are creating an open edge ecosystem which offers benefits for companies of any size,” says Ralf-Michael Franke, CEO of the Factory Automation business unit.

Siemens is using Docker standard container technology: the provision of apps in the management system will therefore be just as simple as functional upgrades and updates of Edge devices in the shop from a central point.