ISA Day Two
You couldn't exactly say the aisle were crowded, but there were plenty of attendees at Day Two of this year's edition of ISA Expo in Houston. Jim Pinto, entrepreneur, angel investor, author and Autmation World columnist, gave a passionate keynote to start the day off. His talk is mostly a challenge to listeners to recognize problems then get busy and find solutions. We hope many take him seriously.
One thing Jim talked about was a coming consolidation of suppliers in the automation industry. It looks to me like there is a growing segmentation on the process side where each of the majors (Honeywell, ABB, Invensys (Foxboro) and Emerson, not to mention Siemens (Moore)) seem to be each emphasizing different parts of the market. On the other hand, Rockwell and GE Fanuc seem intent on growing into certain areas of the process market--primarily batch processing.
Jim is convinced that Invensys will be sold owing to the financial difficulties orchestrated by inept management in the past. He also believes that the scaled down Rockwell, divested now of just about everything except automation in the form of the old Allen-Bradley and Reliance companies, is ripe for sale.
Invensys executives during briefings at the show met the corporate concerns head on, unlike in past years where they deflected any inquiries into that affair. That's probably a good sign. Both the Process Systems (Foxboro, Triconix, Avantis, SimSci, etc.) and Wonderware report strong growth this year. Will that be enough to save them as an entity? Wonderware president Mike Bradley touted the benefits of the corporate refinancing program that gives the company a working capital cushion until 2009.
If history is a guide and Siemens does buy it, that will be the end of some legendary products. Siemens tends to absorb the best of the people and distribution, but quickly moves customers to Siemens platforms and eliminates development of the acquired products. With Intellution now folded into GE Fanuc, the end of Wonderware would be the end of an era of competition.
Let's hope that we see Siemens competing with Invensys in the future, not eliminating it. I think it would be better for customers. But the main quesiton remains, is this industry big enough any more for so many major suppliers? I heard many comments that perhaps there may only be four majors in a couple of years. In such a case, I expect to see a lot of vigor in the smaller, and quite innovative, companies like Opto 22, Automationdirect, Phoenix Contact and Wago. Perhaps Beckhoff could be counted in there, as well, if it continues to grow.
9:54:10 AM 
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