A couple of years ago, when the internet of things (IoT) was just becoming a major topic for discussion and hype, it seemed that industrial giant General Electric’s bid to take a guiding role would set it against IBM. GE executives made repeated comments implying that the traditional big data experts from the IT world would not be best placed to handle the kind of information which would flood over the airwaves from connected industrial ‘things’. William Ruh, head of software at GE, even took a swipe at IBM’s fabled artificial intelligence engine, Watson, saying in an interview: “In emerging markets, we are seeing dirt and sandy environments … How are these affecting aero engines? Business intelligence cannot answer this.…