Poem: The Industrial Wireless Quadrille
With apologies to Lewis Carroll's The Lobster Quadrille: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
"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!
"Let's 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
c 24 September 2007
ISA - International Society of Automation
Just over a year ago, I considered ISA to be a 'melting iceberg'. Since then, the organisation has been making good progress, and plans are crystallising for new growth and success.
Executive director Pat Gouhin, who joined in January 2006, has excellent related experience with the dynamics of volunteer-driven organisations. He has clearly developed a strong relationship with the volunteer chain-of-command, which now has a consistent vision focused on the future.
While originally an 'instrumentation' society, ISA is now involved with the broader aspects of 'automation' and aims to be a catalyst for creation of the automation profession of the future.
The original name was reflected in membership (about 29 000 total) being overwhelmingly American - 65% in the US, 10% in Canada. To be a successful global organisation, the membership percentages should be the inverse of the current ratio, about 75% from outside North America. If one makes the reasonable assumption that domestic membership has stabilised, then international membership should generate growth of at least 300%, to well over 100 000 members.
Next week, at ISA Expo 2007 in Houston, society delegates will vote to change ISA's name to International Society of Automation, reflecting the two important differences in focus: 'International' and 'Automation'. I heartily recommend this change.
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.
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