In September 2007, when HART-7 and WirelessHART standards were released, Honeywell and others insisted that the ISA-100 standard was worth waiting for, and would be released in 'months'.
Now finally, almost two years later, the ISA Standards Committee has voted to approve the proposed ISA100.11a and the leaders claim they have passed a major milestone.
This latest announcement followed earlier rounds of infighting, split votes and eyewash refinements. The draft now has approval by 81% of the voting members of the committee and 23 of the 24 end user members. One wonders who that 24th end-user is...
In Sept. 2007, ISA and the HART Communications Foundation (HCF) agreed to collaborate on investigating ways to incorporate IEEE 802.15.4 based WirelessHART into ISA 100.11a. But, the latest ISA-100 announcement, perhaps intentionally, makes no mention of WirelessHART. Meanwhile, at the Interkama show in Hanover, Germany, five vendors launched Wireless HART compliant SmartMesh IA-510 wireless sensor networking products.
The ISA 100.11a draft specification has finally got committee agreement. But that is not the end of the process. The proposal will be reviewed by ISA-100 co-chairs, and after that has to be approved by the ISA Standards and Practices Board and ratified by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) before final publication by ISA as a standard.
They claim that the final release will be in August 2009. But, I would not bet on it. This is just committee jargon for another round of lobbying and protests. You wanna bet that something will come up to delay the launch? In any case, the standard will still need to accommodate WirelessHART which already has a large following.
The workings of a committee are always amusing, and the ISA-100 committee machinations would deserve a poem – if I had not already written one in 2007. But, perhaps the significance was lost in the committee mentality...
The Industrial Wireless Quadrille
With Apologies to Lewis Carroll
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – The Lobster Quadrille
“Will you walk a little faster!” cried Honeywell to the ISA snail
“There’s an Emerson right behind me and he’s treading on my tail!
We need ISA-100 now for wireless to advance
End-users have been waiting long and they will join the dance
Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, will you join the dance?
“You can really have no notion how delightful it will be,
With this broader standard, why can’t we just agree?”
“WirelessHART!” cried Emerson and would not change their stance
ABB, Siemens, E+H too, just would not join the dance.
Would not, could not, would not, could not, would not join the dance!
“Lets join our games, pretend we’re friends!” then Emerson replied
“’Cause everyone wants WirelessHART, it’s ready NOW beside
ISA-100 will take too long, it really has no chance
So why don’t you just join our game and then we both can dance!
Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, won’t you join the dance?”
Honeywell an open letter wrote, “Can’t you see that HART’s too narrow?
ISA-100 includes all protocols that we will need tomorrow.”
Then lots of others gave their view, each trying to enhance
With open-letters flying around, it was the strangest dance
Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, will you join the dance?
These wireless wars have now become a Fieldbus déjà vu
New SP-100 equals old SP-50 times two
The industry keeps spinning round while the leading vendors prance
Each seeking the advantage in this latest wireless dance
Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, will you join the dance?
The wireless market’s growing fast and who will be the champ?
The lobbying goes on to see who now will join which camp
In this dance and whirligig, are end-users there perchance?
‘Cause this is for them, the vendors swear, as they prolong the dance
Will they, won’t they, will they, won’t they, will they join the dance?
Jim Pinto is an industry analyst and commentator, writer, technology futurist and angel investor. His popular e-mail newsletter, JimPinto.com eNews, is widely read (with direct circulation of about 7000 and web-readership of two to three times that number). His areas of interest are technology futures, marketing and business strategies for a fast-changing environment, and industrial automation with a slant towards technology trends.
Jim Pinto, 24 September 2007
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