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GE to Build Global Software CenterPOSTED November 18, 2011 SAN RAMON -- GE plans to open a new Global Software Center next year to be headquartered at the Bishop Ranch office complex in San Ramon. When fully operational, this new "nerve center" for software will employ approximately 400 software professionals to speed the pace of innovation, collaboration and commercialization of new technologies. This expansion adds to GE's current software portfolio that includes technologies that help customers improve productivity and increase cost savings, whether they operate power plants, jet engines, electric vehicle charging stations, locomotives or the medical systems deployed around the world. GE Vice President Bill Ruh, an executive with more than 25 years of software industry experience, will lead the centralized software initiative. Ruh and his team will connect and align the more than 5,000 GE software professionals who use information to develop digital offerings that solve GE customers' most pressing challenges. "For years, GE has used software in its equipment to provide power, to move people and to help physicians see and treat disease," explained Ruh. "Our goal today is to develop a new generation of intelligent systems that can predict and respond to changes. These digital offerings will harness and automatically analyze the petabytes of data that are generated by industrial equipment to help our customers get the most value from their assets. All of this activity will occur on the 'Industrial Internet,' a living network of intelligent machines and systems." With its decades of experience designing, manufacturing and servicing these complex systems, and relentless focus on innovation, GE is uniquely positioned to build and deliver the world's industrial infrastructure and the software that runs it. By building software for the Industrial Internet, GE is putting "big data" to work for customers, allowing them to take advantage of opportunities or solve problems in real-time. Mark Little, Chief Technology Officer and Senior Vice President at GE, said, "For decades, GE has seamlessly migrated technology from one industry to another. As we look at new opportunities in software, our new center will stimulate even more collaboration across GE and our diverse customer base. On any given day, one of our software experts could be working on a clean energy project, while at the same time contributing to a program that improves the delivery of health care." Ruh said, "At the San Ramon center, our architects and engineers will collaborate with our global experts from multiple industries to combine our decades of experience with infrastructure equipment and marry them with software solutions. We believe that our expertise across many industries will allow us and our customers to accelerate digital innovation and deliver unprecedented results." Today, every GE business unit has a rich portfolio of software-based solutions and services built around the latest technologies and innovations to deliver offerings that have revolutionized everything from monitoring the health of locomotives on the rails to monitoring the health of patients in hospitals. "As we enter into an era of increased demand for services due to healthcare reform, it is critical that the healthcare industry invests in more sophisticated systems for managing patient capacity and the cost of care," said Wayne Keathley, president and COO, The Mount Sinai Hospital. "Our work with GE has positioned us to better manage patient flow, capacity and demand, and we are now meeting these challenges more efficiently and safely through a combination of technology, software and decision making processes. These three elements provide key players with the data and information necessary to make Sinai run at optimal capacity, sustainably and at all times. I believe this holistic, system-wide approach is essential to the future of healthcare." Design work on the new center is under way with construction of the space beginning later this year. Employees will begin moving into the new center in mid-2012. In addition to the San Ramon facility, GE has opened two large software operations over the past two years. The Advanced Manufacturing and Software Technology Center near Detroit employs nearly 1,000 GE Information Technology employees who develop software for GE's internal operations. The Information Security Technology Center near Richmond, Virginia houses high-tech teams specializing in cyber security, as well as network design, architecture, data management, and application development. © Copyright SVDaily.com |
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