I'm in Minneapolis on my way to Bozeman, Montana. First criterion for a hotel is high-speed Internet connection. Automation World Managing Editor Wes Iversen went to the Sensors Expo in Chicago this week. I told him of rumors I'd heard that even though member companies had ratified the ZigBee Standard there was still a lot of bickering and posturing among competing interests. I just proofed his news item from the show, and sure enough, most of the wireless mesh networking companies were touting their proprietary wares (except for Ember whose chairman is Ethernet inventor Bob Metcalf.
What has made so many good technologies take off, providing inexpensive quality computing products? Standards! We can all link to Ethernet TCP/IP because the underlying technology is both stable and supported by an entire industry. If those other companies in the mesh networking arena don't wake up, they'll ruin a perfectly good opportunity, just like the PC-based control people did in the late 90s. By fighting against each other instead of promoting a common, good technology, the technology will never take off.
7:54:44 AM 
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