Hilscher joins the Margo Initiative and continues to drive forward the interoperability of edge applications
Hattersheim, 29 April 2026 – Hilscher has joined the Margo Initiative and is set to leverage its expertise to advance the interoperability of industrial edge applications. The goal of the Margo membership of Hilscher is to reduce the integration effort required for digitalization projects while simultaneously accelerating the rollout of applications. Additionally, the Margo Initiative aims to simplify the scaling and operation of solutions across various IIoT infrastructures and make them more reliable.
Industrial automation is currently amidst a shift towards distributed software architectures at the junction of IT and OT. Applications run on edge devices close to machines, but most systems are not aligned with each other when interoperating.
With the steady rise of digitization in industrial devices, machines and plants, the number of such software applications running on edge devices (e.g. edge gateways) from different vendors and manufacturers is also ever increasing. Different standards and approaches result in complex integration which slows down deployment and limits potential growth.
Cross-vendor software deployment at the edge is a challenge that has caused headache for years. Together with the partners at Margo, we have an opportunity to resolve this issue for good, allowing for better scalability for solution providers and less e¬ffort for users.
Dr. Andreas Graf Gatterburg
Principal Technology Consultant
Hilscher Gesellschaft für Systemautomation mbH
How does Margo solve interoperability challenges at the edge?
To achieve this, Margo has defined three core deliverables:
Reference Implementation
Margo will produce an open-source reference implementation to demonstrate how the standard can be realized as a guide for adopters. The Margo community views a code-first approach as essential to maintaining momentum in specification development. The reference implementation will serve to inform Margo specification documentation, in favor of a documentation-first approach. This also serves as a blueprint for industrial automation device manufacturers, software vendors supplying edge applications, and orchestration software vendors to build commercial solutions. The interoperability goals for Margo can only be achieved once widespread adoption is reached, resulting in an ecosystem of compliant commercial offerings.
Open Standard
Margo will develop an open-source specification, defining a standard architecture and interfaces to enable orchestration of edge applications and devices at scale. This specification will not address application data exchange in the first revision, but this is intended as a future focus area for specification development. The Margo standard will leverage supporting standards and technologies to avoid ground-up development.
Open Compliance Test Suite
An interoperability standard requires compliance validation to ensure consistency and establish trust in products that will adopt a common approach. Margo will provide an open compliance test suite with publicly traceable compliance test results for all products claiming to support the standard.
Hilscher’s contribution to the Margo initiative
What is Margo?
Hosted by the Linux Foundation, the Margo initiative draws its name from the Latin word for 'edge' and defines mechanisms for interoperability between applications, devices and orchestration software at the edge of industrial ecosystems. In particular, Margo will make it easy to run and combine applications from any ecosystem member on top of the hardware and runtime system of any other member.
Margo aims to deliver on its interoperability promise through a modern and agile open-source approach, which will bring industrial companies increased flexibility, simplicity and scalability as they undergo digital transition in complex, multi-vendor environments.
Related links
The Margo initiative defines mechanisms for interoperable orchestration at scale of edge applications/workloads and devices. It will deliver the interoperability promise through an open standard, a reference implementation and comprehensive compliance testing toolkit.
Learn more about Margo on their website
With netFIELD, you benefit from Hilscher’s deep expertise in industrial communication—empowering reliable IT-OT convergence and Industry 4.0 implementations. The platform enables you to efficiently operate, manage, and scale edge gateways and IIoT applications—whether cloud-connected, hybrid, or fully on-premise.
