Pinto's Enews and wireless Jim Pinto's latest e-news has been published. He revisits Honeywell's corporate culture, predicts big things for wireless in industrial automation, talks about getting on Skype, the world happiness map and religion as a divisive force.
I'm researching for an article on wireless networking for the November issue of Automation World. I'm not certain that it will be the biggest thing since the PLC. It may be part of the biggest thing. Wireless networking with inexpensive sensors as part of a connected enterprise that give all manufacturing professionals better information for optimizing manufacturing businesses may be the next big thing. And many of the pieces of that puzzle are falling into place.
As far as everyone's wireless announcements (Emerson had a big one at the ARC Forum in February, followed by Invensys/Foxboro and Honeywell making big spashes), the skeptic in me wonders if it's all just a strategy to either co-opt or influence the ISA SP-100 committee trying to develop a standard for industrial wireless networking. Kind of like all standards processes that are driven by suppliers, each wants the standard to reflect its particular strengths and downplay those of the competition. Tough work on those committees. I bet that there will evolve several "standards" with intelligent third party companies developing ways to make them interoperable. Gosh, kind of like wired networks.
7:08:34 AM 
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