New Go-to-Market Channel Emerges from HPE/ABB Partnership

ABB and HPE recently announced an IIoT partnership to unite a primarily OT-first firm (ABB) and an IT-first firm (HPE) and will use this partnership to provide customized solutions at the edge (on premises)because most of their target customers currently have little interest in the public cloud. Both companies have a focus on computing at the edge. ABB brings its ABB Ability platform, automation technology, robotics, and other industrial equipment. HPE brings its Edgeline IoT systems and gateways, ProLiant servers, HPE OneView, and Express App Platform - Manufacturing.

No single company can provide true end-to-end IIoT solutions at scale. No two companies can do this either, but ABB and HPE can bring some big pieces of the puzzle to the table. They have the chance to drive adoption of IIoT solutions, especially edge solutions, faster than most of their competitors. This fulfills the next big step in IT/OT integration. Once ABB gets clients running and comfortable with edge solutions based on HPE gateways and ABB Ability, it provides further opportunity to integrate with the rest of the enterprise via the cloud. Manufacturers will need some hand-holding through each step of integration because each step requires organizational, managerial, and cultural changes unique to each organization.

ABB works with and supplies manufacturers in over 100 countries. It launched ABB Ability in 2016 and hopes to expand its adoption across all of its customers. ABB and HPE both know the advantages of running analytics and control at the edge, which include lower latency, more security, and reliability without all the bandwidth and storage costs of shipping every byte to the cloud. ABB relies on intelligent gateways, such as HPE’s Edgeline systems and gateways, for edge computing. Approaching its customers with an experienced and reliable edge computing partner like HPE should improve its hit rates as it tries to sell ABB Ability. In addition, these projects require the sign-off of CIOs, and HPE speaks the IT professional’s language as well as anyone.

HPE believes that it needs contacts in its target markets, including manufacturing, while ABB has all of the manufacturing contacts and relationships it needs. ABB understands the needs of the OT professionals and the shop-floor workers and speaks their language. HPE needs the buy-in of OT professionals to open the door to sell its gateways, and ABB opens that door. In fact, given ABB’s commitment, expertise, and relationships with manufacturers, HPE should only need to exert minimal effort to sells its gateways as part of the ABB Ability solutions that ABB will push to its customers. The challenge and the extra opportunity come in the form of upselling with servers and HPE OneView, and figuring out the Express App Platform’s place in all this.

See ABI Research’s new IT/OT Convergence in Smart Manufacturing and Enterprise (AN-2645) report for a deeper dive into IT/OT convergence and integration.