EMAIL INTERVIEW  Anto Budiardjo & Ken Sinclair

Anto Budiardjo is President & CEO of Clasma Events Inc., the organizer of BuilConn Americas in Palm Springs, May 16-18, 2006 (www.builconn.com) and the co-located M2M Expo & Conference (www.m2mexpo.com).

Please send comments and questions to antob@clasma.com.

AHR and the Road to Palm Springs

It was a perfect start of 2006, a year that will be a critical year for convergence. Cisco’s participation will make BuilConn Palm Springs a must-attend event for vendors, integrators, consultants and owners.

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Sinclair:  What was your impression of AHR in Chicago this year?

Budiardjo:  The pre-show anticipation was high, but the reality was even more interesting, specially regarding the road to convergence. I met up with and spoke to around a hundred people, and it was a very accepted notion that convergence, Ethernet, IP are things that are happening now.

Sinclair:  Many were asking why Cisco is interested in building automation.

Budiardjo:  Yes, that was a dominant question being asked; why is Cisco sponsoring BuilConn in such a major way, what are their motives? The quick answer is a $25b worldwide opportunity. What’s behind that is Cisco’s desire to partner with the industry and understand how it can participate and contribute to this emerging IP centric market. Cisco feels that BuilConn is an ideal way that they can enter this market.

Sinclair:  Does the Roundtable at BuilConn seem critical?

Budiardjo:  Yes the by-invitation-only Roundtable on the pre-day of BuilConn is important. It will gather key stakeholders around the convergence subject, to help understand the current issues faced by owners, integrators and vendors, as well as to discuss where the convergence market is likely to evolve and grow.

Sinclair:  How does the industry at large hear about the outcome of the Roundtable?

Budiardjo:  The reason for doing it on the pre-conference day of BuilConn is that members of the roundtable can participate in panels during the formal part of BuilConn. This is where the outcome will be disseminated and further discussed with the broader audience in Palm Springs.

Sinclair:  Will organizations such as BACnet and LonMark be at the Roundtable?

Budiardjo:  They have been invited, as are the major system vendors and a number of Integrators and building owners. The objective is to get a broad group of key and influential people that understand the convergence space.

Sinclair:  Turning back to Chicago, what was the highlight for you?

Budiardjo:  Clearly the time for BACnet has arrived; I was very impressed with BACnet on a number of levels. The adoption of BACnet was strong by almost all vendors on the floor. Secondly, their message on their strength at the system level was spot on, the demonstrations at their packed booths was strong about system level interoperability. Also, after many years of being an internally driven standards group, the BACnet Community is now focused on external business development and marketing activities that will, if they continue as they did in Chicago, make them very quickly a dominant force. Lastly, though not very visible on the floor, they are taking IP and Web Services very seriously.

Sinclair:  How about LonMark?

Budiardjo:  The LonWorks story was also strong. Though to an extent this is a mature subject, so it was not as much of a buzz at the show, most people know what LonWorks is, where it is strong and where to use it. The LonMark organization continues from strength to strength in signing up affiliate organizations around the world. There is also significant behind the scenes work regarding integrator certification within LonMark. This promises to be something significant also.

Sinclair:  How about wireless in Chicago?

Budiardjo:  Most vendors had wireless products, solutions or were communicating wireless plans. Some of these were very strong; such as Siemens, Kiyon, JCI, ZigBee and others. Wireless is clearly the way to go, just not quite mainstream yet. There are still many standard issues to resolve in this space, but I saw Gridlogix demonstrate an approach to fix this at a system level; a very impressive concept.

[an error occurred while processing this directive] Sinclair:  How does this lead to Palm Springs?

Budiardjo:  It was a perfect start of 2006, a year that will be a critical year for convergence. Cisco’s participation will make BuilConn Palm Springs a must-attend event for vendors, integrators, consultants and owners. We have invited both the LonMark and BACnet communities to be in Palm Springs to help fit these pieces together so we can start growing this business segment and deliver owners what they need.

Sinclair:  I heard you are organizing a GridWise Expo.

Budiardjo:  Yes Ken, the GridWise Expo is now a third element for Palm Springs, so we now have BuilConn, M2M and GridWise. All co-located in Palm Springs May 16-18. If you go to one, you get all three.

Sinclair:  How does this differ from the GridWise Constitutional Convention?

Budiardjo:  The convention in Philadelphia was necessary for the GridWise community to establish a set of guiding principles, which we now know as the GridWise Constitution. The Expo is a next phase; it is education, business development and evangelizing the GridWise vision as well as technology and products surrounding this very important subject.

Sinclair:  How about your plans for the rest of 2006?

Budiardjo:  As you know, we will go back to Amsterdam 3-5 October for BuilConn and M2M. We are looking at planning other events in key markets of the world, your readers should keep tuned in to AutomatedBuildings.com as well as subscribe to the BuilConn Update by visiting www.builconn.com/bcupdate.

Sinclair:  2006 is turning out to be an exciting year!

Budiardjo:  Yes it is, or as Cisco puts it, it is now the “Decision Point” for IP convergence. For many of your readers, it should also be a decision point about their involvement.

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