Thursday, March 2, 2006

Yokogawa I had a follow up interview with Isao Uchida of Yokogawa at last week's ARC conference. Had to share the interview this year, so a) I couldn't get some of the specifics my direction and b) we ran about a half-hour long. No problem. Main thing I wanted to know was progress toward the goal of becoming number 1 supplier. While I appreciate his stretch goal, I'm beginning to notice the same trend I hear from all the other process automation suppliers--defining the market in such a way that they're each number one, or at least each growing faster than the market at large. I say that not suggesting anything duplicitous or evil, just interesting marketing speak. At any rate, Uchida-san said that he was focusing on two things: enhancing products and capitalizing on momentum where the company already has a lead. Not to say that he is ignoring geographies like the US, where much work remains in gaining visibility and market share. An interesting aside on this point is a comment that I heard at an Emerson gathering where that company thinks it sees opportunities in Yokogawa's heartland--Japan. While not counting ABB, Honeywell, Invensys, Rockwell or Siemens out, the hotly contested action seems now to be between Emerson Process and Yokogawa. I am again pondering whether the time is ripe for further consolidation in this market. No, I'm not trying to spread rumors, but I do wonder. When I was in Tokyo at Yokogawa's technology fair last fall, I saw some really advanced photonics equipment (switches for optical fiber networking). Uchida referenced that in countering Emerson's announcement that it will have wireless products this year by saying that fiber optics may hold more promise in process control. Uchida also pointed out ambitious plans to increase field engineering staff by 50%. This will go a long ways toward helping build market share. Also fits a trend of moving expertise from customers to suppliers. 10:38:40 AM    comment []

SP95 discussion heats up There is a great discussion on the ISA SP95 committee mail list about future development of the ISA-95 standard for control to enterprise communication and its work with orther organizations such as The Open Applications Group, WBF, the organization formerly known as World Batch Forum, OPC and the Open Operations & Maintenance (Open O&M) and MIMOSA. If you care about standards and being involved in their development, then hit the ISA link and volunteer. 10:03:30 AM    comment []

Vitale's secrets for success Dayton Daily News Sports Editor Brian Kollars interviews ESPN's Dick Vitale who is coming to Dayton for a talk. Dickie V's secrets to success--Energy and Enthusiasm. That's something we can all take away. If it weren't for those two attributes, I couldn't maintain the pace I do. Well said, Dickie V. 6:09:32 AM    comment []

Search engines Think search engines give you unbiased results? Here's a post from Nicholas Carr quoting work done by Lee Gomes of the Wall Street Journal. When information becomes "information" Are search engines benign? Lee Gomes, of the Wall Street Journal, doesn't think so. He recently dove into the booming online business of ginning up "original content," and he reports on his experience in his column today. "Understanding what's happening," he writes, "requires a lesson in modern Web economics": If there is a topic in the news, people will be searching on it. If you can get those searchers to land on a seemingly authoritative page you've set up, you can make money from their arrival. Via ads, for instance. Then, to get your site ranked high in search engines, it's best to have "original content" about whatever the subject of your site happens to be. The content needs to include all the keywords that people might search for. But it can't be just an outright copy of what's on some other site; you get penalized for that by search engines. Writers are being solicited to churn out such content at dirt cheap rates. Gomes, for instance, signed up on the web to write fifty 500-word articles for $100 (total, not per piece). Most of the writing, apparently, gets done in India and Eastern Europe, and much of it consists of mashing up, and distorting, work plagiarized from other, legitimate sites. Depending on the types of products or ads they're selling, the site operators instruct the writers to slant the stories to their needs. Medical topics are particular favorites - and particularly subject to fakery and twisting. "My beef," Gomes concludes, "is with the search engines and the economics of the modern Web": Google, for example, says its mission is "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful." The way that's written, one thinks perhaps of a satellite orbiting high above the earth, capturing all its information but interfering with nothing. In fact, search engines are more like a TV camera crew let loose in the middle of a crowd of rowdy fans after a game. Seeing the camera, everyone acts boorishly and jostles to get in front. The act of observing something changes it. Which is what search engines are causing to happen to much of the world's "information." Legitimate information ... risks being crowded out by junky, spammy imitations. Nothing very useful about that." Search engines didn't invent charlatanism. They're just turning it into a modern global industry. - nick (nick@roughtype.com) [Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog] 5:59:06 AM    comment []