I'm making a bunch of trips and couldn't work in a trip to Hannover (Germany) this year. Shame, because it looks like there will be some major (that's what the press invites say) networking announcements. There will be EDDL news--and the FDT Group is featured prominently. Do you suppose that there is a little "kiss and make up" going on in that camp? Pretty much everyone but Emerson is in the FDT camp, and I finally got some background on why. It was a private conversation and I don't know enough to report all the details, but I have a better understanding about why everyone else needs another layer.
Then I received calls from both Rockwell Automation and ODVA about a major announcement in that camp. About time. I have had little news from either organization about the CIP networks for quite a while. Rockwell's early major partners with DeviceNet were Omron and Cutler Hammer. Omron's US presence has shrunk over the past three years (I don't know about market share, but I'm talking about visibility). It is probably a useful partner in Asia, though. Cutler Hammer exited automation several years ago. It still uses DeviceNet in its switchgear. But that leaves Rockwell pretty lonely right now in that camp.
To be fair, it seems most of the momentum has switched to the process side. On the discrete side, everyone has its own "open" network--Mitsubishi with CC-Link, B&R with PowerLink, Beckhoff with EtherCat, Schneider with Modbus TCP, Siemens with Profibus. While all have many partners as part of the network group, each is driven by a dominant player. And convergence appears unlikely--but maybe not as necessary as in process manufacturing. On the process side it's Profibus PA/Profinet and Foundation Fieldbus--and both use EDDL. So there's some convergence going on there.
Meanwhile Chuck Micallef from Hart Foundation sent me a teaser about an upcoming announcement there.
So the week of April 15 should have more news than just reports of late tax filers.
7:25:42 AM 
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