It's been a busy few days. We drove to Florida Thursday and Friday. My wife drove much of the way while I typed and conducted interviews. She'll be down here close to the grandkid while I work as usual. Same day we got to the house we rented for the month, my wife's sister and mother showed up for a week. That'll keep her busy while I'm at the ARC Forum in Orlando.
PR people have been calling for a couple of weeks setting up appointments. There are eight straight press conferences on Monday afternoon. One company has a press conference, a reception, and a private meeting with me. Another company has a press conference and a private meeting--far away from the conference area.
There is already a press release for one of the announcements. It's from ILS Technology. I wrote about this company and its partnership with Mitsubishi after last year's Forum. Searching for what's different (some of the release is copied below), looks like the difference is that IBM is part of the mix (ILS is a spin off from IBM originally). And they have developed a reference architecture. The last I heard, still no products available. But maybe that will be part of the announcements. Emerson Process Management is paying for wireless Internet connection at the Forum, so I'll try to grab some minutes to update happenings.
What this technology does is connect PLC data to enterprise databases (IBM, Oracle, etc.) eliminated any intermediate steps. We hear that IT managers want this connectivity. The proof will be when they make purchase decisions, I guess.
The press release says that Mitsubishi Electric Corp. (Mitsubishi Electric Automation is part of that group, I believe), IBM and ILS Technology are delivering a service oriented architecture (SOA) solution specifically designed for the automotive manufacturing industry. They have developed a reference architecture. IBM brings integration services, SOA foundation and project management to the alliance. Mitsubishi has factory automation products, and ILS has the DeviceWise connectivity technology.
11:25:40 AM 
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