Thursday, July 19, 2007

Metrics Matter I listened to a Webcast on Metrics That Matter from MESA International this morning. A lot of good information. They had someone who actually does the work present his experiences with metrics and KPIs. If you missed it, check out this link next week (they said the archived version would be up then). 2:43:13 PM    comment []

Hype or reality? Updated Ah, semantics. I, along with many readers here, equated "shipping" with "generally available for sale" regarding wireless sensor systems. Actually, these are two separate things--a fact which led to some confusion on my part. Emerson is indeed shipping its wireless sensor network kit--but it apparently is not generally available for sale. By that I mean that there is a list of SKUs and anyone with a credit card or purchase order can add them to the shopping cart and purchase. I am assured by Emerson marketing that many have been shipped over the past eight months and that the press (and probably other attendees) will hear all about it in September at Emerson Exchange. So, this apparently is a similar program to what the software industry does. First a beta goes out to a select bunch of developers (we saw those two years ago at Exchange). Then a "big" beta goes out to a larger number of users (evidently this program). Then if all goes well (and in this case I can't believe it wouldn't), then there will be a bunch of SKUs on the Web site and everyone can go buy them. We can hope that this announcement will be made in September. I'm still predicting 2008 as a year where we see wireless sensor networks start to build critical mass. But we'll need more than a few SKUs for that to happen. 9:59:24 AM    comment []