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Hitachi Combines Units to Improve Big Data Analysis Business

Hitachi Combines Units to Improve Big Data Analysis Business

(Bloomberg) -- Hitachi Ltd., which is spending about $2.8 billion over three years on its Internet of Things platform, is merging three units into Hitachi Vantara, seeking to boost its ability to provide technology solutions as a single offering.

The new wholly-owned subsidiary combines Hitachi Data Systems Corp., Hitachi Insight Group and Pentaho, the parent said in a statement Tuesday in Las Vegas. The company will also offer a commercial version of its Lumada Internet of Things platform software, now in version 2.0, it said separately. The statements didn’t include any sales estimates.

Tokyo-based Hitachi, like the Boston-based behemoth General Electric Co., is increasing its focus on the use of digital technology to sell its car parts, trains and mining equipment. Last year it introduced a global leadership team to oversee all aspects of the company’s investment in the Internet of Things, which links devices and infrastructure, such as trains, via sensors to computers to monitor their operations and help improve performance. 

The software push by giants such as Hitachi and GE is part of a broad movement by industrial producers to create factories, energy plants and vehicles that can sense their own performance and surroundings, cut costs or create new businesses based on that that. More than $440 billion will be spent on IoT in 2020, according to estimates from Gartner Inc.

The Internet of Things accounted for about $5.4 billion of Hitachi’s sales in the year ended March 2016, equivalent to about 6 percent of revenue for the company.

To contact the reporter on this story: Chris Cooper in Tokyo at ccooper1@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Anand Krishnamoorthy at anandk@bloomberg.net, Sam Nagarajan, Reed Stevenson