AutomatedBuildings.com Editorial Comments July & August 2004

issue comes to you from our sailboat in Desolation Sound on the west coast of the mainland of British Columbia. We are fighting with slow speed connection over cell modem and concerns of keeping all our battery powered equipment charged, but we are still having fun while bringing you this issue. This issue is actually powered by our companion boat WhiteHawk as our electronics refused to charge our new laptop and we must operate on battery only. Lots of great information. In our fourth supplement “Connecting Convergence” prepared for Engineered Systems Anto and I identify the major trends that are fuelling the connection of real time data to our client’s enterprise. In addition my August Building Automation column Building the Building Domain is about how moving to the next chapter and getting on with the exciting business of building our clients’ real time data domain will have a profound effect. Please feed me back your comments. Lots of great articles.

It is sailing season again as you can see by our July logo and Jane and I are looking forward to setting sail soon but lots of excitement in the industry that we must share with you before we go. My building automation column for July for both Engineered Systems and AutomatedBuildings.com

provides insight on how to purchase a system before or while the paint is drying. There is a lot of that going on everywhere in the industry and in the midst of all the wet paint it is difficult to determine what is real and what is not. Creating a Request for Proposal allows you to clearly states your mandatory requirements and to express your overall intent, while the resultant proposals allow the evaluation of real available technology. Please read this column and share your thoughts with me.

I have long been a fan and supporter of DDC Online: www.ddc-online.org/ with several links from our training section. DDC Online is a web-based resource that specifying engineers, commissioning providers, building owners, facility managers and others can draw upon to make informed decisions about building controls based on credible information. Please read Maria's interview and note For the first time, the Iowa Energy Center is accepting Sponsoring Partners for its DDC Online Web resource. Companies can now reach DDC Online’s 6,000 unique visitors a month by becoming a Sponsoring Partners. Do not miss this opportunity to support this valuable resource for our industry. Contact Maria for the details of how you can help this worthy cause. Maria Corsi mcorsi@energy.iastate.edu

Anto tells us of yet another new venture "BuilSpec" from our interview - BuilSpec is a series of one-day educational seminars to bring much needed education on the dynamics driving open systems, integration and IT convergence to consulting and specifying engineers. Anto is also looking for industry sponsorship of these great events. Talk to him and see how you can be part of the large task of educating the designers/consultants in our industry with the rapid changes that have occurred www.builspec.com.

These two interviews plus my latest and greatest column indicate that the industry has shifted focus to getting on with the task of specifying, procuring, and just better understanding the complexity of open systems and IT integration.

Also we are pleased that the new chairman of oBIX has found time in his busy schedule to share his "blocks" with us; a very insightful article from a user perspective oBIX Building Blocks.

Wow, in May Automated Logic got gobbled up by Carrier / United Technologies and in June it was Andover's turn to get gobbled by Schneider Electric. Last year TAC was also gobbled up by Schneider Electric plus, Novar of the United Kingdom acquired Alerton. What does this all mean? Change in our industry is constant. I am sure this is all for the best, although I feel that we will all miss the innovation that these companies provided to our industry. It does tell me that what we are doing is becoming main stream plus very global and that web ways and the importance of controlling the new wave of the converging real time data with our existing clients' enterprise is not going un-noticed by the major players. The purchase the industry leaders' client base is well understood as the quickest way to move into a new industry. I feel that the games have just begun and the independent companies have a clear message that if you provide comprehensive powerful integration solutions and assemble a strong client base someone will likely buy you out. This keeps the pressure on us all to innovate and keep the creative juices flowing.

With Andover Controls, Schneider Electric will expand its security capabilities and benefit from a platform well suited for expansion in electronic security, which is a € 20 billion market growing by 7% a year. Last year when Schneider took over TAC the market was estimated at €11 billion, growing on average by more than 6% a year. Our markets in all areas are rapidly expanding and globalization is upon us.

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BuilConn Europe, M2M Europe, and LonWorld® 2004 Shanghai, China have been added and we are media sponsors of both.

Thanks to all Our Sponsors for allowing us to provide our industry online information service to you for free.

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