Platform as a service (PaaS) will be crucial to ‘Internet+ manufacturing’ and 2i integration, argue Zhou Jian 周剑 Electronic Technology Information Research Institute (ETIRI) Informatisation R&D Centre director and Xiao Linlin 肖琳琳 ETIRI Office of Industry and Informatisation Research director in a Xinhua op-ed.
Whereas software as a service (SaaS) offers clients access to a piece of software, PaaS gives subscribers access to cloud-based tools for setting up and configuring their own software applications and for managing servers and databases.
Domestic PaaS services are underdeveloped, say Zhou and Xiao, noting they lack
- industrial infrastructure
- no domestic leaders; no equivalent of IBM, Microsoft or Oracle; Alibaba and Tencent can not truly lead the digital industry
- foreign companies such as General Electric and Siemens dominate the high-end market, leaving little room for 'Made in China'
- data collection and analysis capabilities
- only 44.8 percent of enterprise devices were digital in 2017, and only 39 percent of these were connected to the internet
- advanced information and communication technology (ICT)
- most PaaS technologies are US-owned
Zhou and Xiao recommend
- connecting manufacturing devices and equipment to the internet
- speed up the automation, digitalisation and commercialisation of smart devices
- regulate market access, business licences and standards
- launching PaaS pilots
- resolve key problems associated with industrial know-how, data technologies, platform setting and a functional market ecosystem
- set up a framework for industrial internet platforms (IIP)
- led by major manufacturers with considerable informatisation capabilities
- backed by information and communication technology (ICT) enterprises
- complemented by internet enterprises
- carrying out SaaS pilot projects
- integrate the development of ‘manufacturing + internet + finance’
- encourage information sharing
- improve the social credit system
- advancing mass entrepreneurship and innovation and 2i integration
- guaranteeing information security
- improve regulation, inspection and supervision
- improve testing, risk evaluation and certification
Zhao and Xiao point out that IIP is central in State Council's 3+2+3 action plan to promote industrial internet, including
- three systems
- internet
- platform
- security
- two types of applications
- innovation apps designed by major firms
- operation apps for SMEs
- three supporting measures
- industrial integration
- conducive ecology
- globalisation