I spent most of the week in Chicago and in many meetings. That plus no good Internet connection at my daughter's apartment put a crimp in my blogging activity. The hour commute each way into the city also put a crimp in my workout schedule. So a phone call when I was an hour from home yesterday afforded a chance for me to pad my resume. My yoga teacher had a last-minute meeting called on her and needed a sub. So, I taught the yoga class last night. Needed it after a four-hour drive, too.
Had several company representatives stop by the Automation World offices while I was there.
Victoria Karlsson and Bengt Salomonsson of Beijer Electronics stopped in Tuesday morning. They were also the subjects of this week's Podcast. I was going to talk about futurist Glen Hiemstra until the discussion with Bengt and Victoria. An editor spends many meetings with computer types going through presentations with 45 PowerPoint slides getting into gory detail of specs and functions. Or else company presidents who are so taken with themselves that they believe they'll bury Rockwell Automation with no advertising budget or distributor network. One other thing we hear is whining about trade shows. Instead, Bengt explained how the company's product line of human-machine interface products is broadening, how it fits with customers' current needs and how it fits within today's total automation system. Then he explained how he just had a great trade show in California by arranging meetings with local distributors and customers while there. That sure beats sitting back and wishing someone else will bring traffic to your booth. They also realize that not many people know who or what Beijer is (by the way, pronounced "bay-er") so they will have to do some brand development promotions. Refreshing.
Graham Moss of Elpro Technologies came by Wednesday to give us an update on wireless technologies. Elpro has been expanding its product line from radio modems to wireless Ethernet (WiFi). He says WiFi for industrial use is really hot in Europe right now. Expects growth in the US. The next thing down the pike is sensor networking. Since sensor networks are inherently local, there is often a bottleneck of traffic at the trunk network stage. That's an area where Elpro offers solutions.
Finally, Thursday just before I left for home, Elizabeth Kollross, Maureen Coveney and Gregg Le Blanc from OSIsoft came in to brief us on previews of coming attractions in the collaborative software space. I really appreciate Gregg's passion about software. Fitting end to the week--unfortuneately, not much hard news to report, but stay tuned.
We did learn that Michael Saucier has left OSIsoft to found a partner company called Transpara that will develop mobile solutions incorporating OSIsoft software. I think a necessary corrollary to wireless growth is development of manufacturing applications for mobile devices. I'm sure there's more to come here.
3:46:02 PM 
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