Digital communication using a fieldbus or Industrial Ethernet is already widely used in modern production plants and is an important building block for increasing productivity. The demand for intelligent communication will continue to increase due to megatrends such Industry 4.0 and IIoT. However, the heterogeneous landscape of Industrial Ethernet standards that has existed for years poses the problem that devices and machines of different communication systems are in themselves unable to exchange data.

Moog Inc. announced that it has acquired a 70 percent ownership of Linear Mold and Engineering with an option to acquire the remaining 30 percent. Terms of the investment were not disclosed.

The privately held Linear Mold and Engineering, based in Livonia, Michigan, has 120 employees and specializes in metal additive manufacturing. Linear provides engineering, manufacturing and production consulting services to customers across a wide range of industries including aerospace, defense, energy and industrial.

The Japanese leading petroleum wholesaler JX Holdings, Inc. ("JXHD") and the third wholesaler TonenGeneral Sekiyu K.K. ("TonenGeneral") announced that the companies have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (the "MOU") regarding a business integration of their groups and have agreed on a target date of April 2017 for the business integration.

EQT VII ("EQT"), through IGT Holding IV AB ("IGT Holding"), has acquired shares in Industrial and Financial Systems, IFS Aktiebolag (publ) ("IFS") corresponding to 68 per cent of the votes and 63 per cent of the total number of shares in IFS. The acquisitions were made from IFS' main shareholders including Förvaltnings AB Wasatornet, Gustaf Douglas, Catella Fondförvaltning AB, Lannebo Fonder AB, SEB, AP4, Anders Böös AB, Greenfield AB (Bengt Nilsson), Heinz Kopfinger, DNB (together the "Main Shareholders"), and others.

ARM, Cisco, Dell, Intel, Microsoft Corp., and the Princeton University Edge Laboratory have come together to form the OpenFog Consortium. The goal of this consortium is to accelerate the deployment of Fog technologies through development of open architecture; core technologies including distributed computing, networking, and storage; as well as the leadership needed to realize the full potential of IoT. The OpenFog architecture brings seamless Intelligence from the Cloud to IoT endpoints using an open standardized approach.

Tata Consultancy Services, a leading IT services, consulting and business solutions organization, announced the launch of a new Center of Excellence (CoE) for Internet of Things (IoT) solutions in collaboration with Intel. The state-of-the-art Center will be located at the TCS Hyderabad Campus.

​Siemens India, in collaboration with TÜV Rheinland India, have set up the Global Skill Center for Occupational Safety in Mumbai, India to provide practical training on the latest safety equipment and techniques. This is the first step towards the "Zero Harm Culture" that enables individuals to work responsibly and run projects without accidents. The center will conduct certified training courses that develop "Safety Leaders" in the project-based businesses and industries.

PTC and Bosch Software Innovations announced a technology alliance to facilitate the integration of the ThingWorx Platform and the Bosch IoT Suite. The new Bosch IoT Suite M2M Connector for ThingWorx allows for technical interplay between the two platforms and is now available on the ThingWorx Marketplace.

Rockwell Automation and Microsoft Corp. are announcing a mobility collaboration project designed for industrial environments where a wireless network connection is not always reliable. This is being driven by industrial workers that are increasingly turning to mobile devices to help improve productivity and collaboration, but are in need of interfaces that are tailored to the specific device that is being used, especially to design, operate and maintain industrial automation systems.

Showa Shell Sekiyu K.K. and Idemitsu Kosan Co., Ltd. announced that they have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the Business Integration of Showa Shell and Idemitsu based on the spirit of equal partnership.