As a result, interest in technology to reduce costs and spur growth has explod- ed. To highlight the distinction, unlike healthcare IT where the implementa- tion and financial returns from EMR took years, industrial technology is far less vulnerable to shifting regulations and market structure uncertainty. While there is significant market noise on this topic, we believe we are still in the early stages of the evolution. For example, while GE expects to grow Predix to $4 billion of annual revenue by 2020, Predix had ~$50 million of revenue in 2016 despite being a leader in the category. United Technologies Corporation, focused on aerospace and building control & security, has been actively sup- plementing its IIoT strategy with initiatives ranging from launching a $300M “big data” tech hub in Brooklyn, NYC, to acquiring the building analytics play- er EcoEnergy. Honeywell is leveraging a company-wide IIoT platform called Sentience to drive optimization and automation to customers in its home & building, performance materials, safety, and aerospace businesses. Sentience 2 drove $4 million in savings in 2016. Entrepreneurs Can Develop Important Platforms Today The typical big-company innovation roadmap of partnering with IBM, Mic- rosoft, and academic institutions like Georgia Tech rarely yields meaningful improvements. For example, many shareholders are expressing skepticism about the significant dollars being spent by GE on internal digital initiatives, questioning not the opportunity or the technology but whether industrial in- cumbents are the right players to exploit it. We believe true innovation will occur through venture funded technology companies. Large industrial com- panies often lack the culture, agility, financial freedom (focus on near-term ROIC), and talent pool to successfully execute in-house. For example, C3 IoT, founded by Thomas Siebel provides large industrials in oil and gas, manufacturing, aerospace, defense, and healthcare with a full- stack IoT development platform as a service (PaaS) for insights on predictive maintenance, fraud detection, supply chain optimization, and asset planning. Compared to GE Predix’s 2016 forecast of 500K connected devices or Siemens’ 200K devices under management, C3 IoT is several years ahead of established 3 competitors, who cannot maintain its pace of innovation. 2 Honeywell 2017 Investor Conference Presentation (Slide 107/174), March 1, 2017. http://investor.honeywell.com/IRW/event/4121346 3 “C3 IoT: Is Tom Siebel’s Startup An Emerging Powerhouse?” by Charles Babcock, 8/10/2016. www.informationweek.com/iot/c3-iot-is-tom-siebels-startup-an-emerging-powerhouse/d/d-id/1326537