A few more days off...

I am, unfortunately, taking a few more days off. I have a large lump in my tongue, which is being removed tomorrow morning. We all hope that it will prove to be nothing, and your humble editor will continue to function normally, with the exception of a few days enforced silence. That's right, Walt Boyes will shut up for a few days--- tell the newspapers! In the meantime, I am hearing very bad things from the ISA SP100 committee, which, in my opinion is pretty near dysfunctional, as is the HART Wireless Working Group. What appears to be happening, from my vantage point at least, is that companies are manoevering for last minute commercial advantage, instead of focusing on growing the market by making a standard. This has happened before, in the automation industry. Witness the incredible stupidity shown by many vendors during the SP50 and subsequent IEC Fieldbus standards debacle. Last November, Emerson president John Berra announced proudly that after 10 years, Rosemount has sold a quarter million fieldbus transmitters. In any other industry, that would be a spectacular product failure, and the persons responsible would be given their walking papers. The other manufacturers of fieldbus instrumentation have fared similary, just so nobody thinks I'm picking on Emerson. The comparison with the CCITT standards and the cell phone standards, and especially the IEEE 802.11xx standards shows that when companies abandon personal competitive advantage in the name of making a market take off, the market expands to the point that everyone wins. I will be writing (and hopefully talking) more about this in the coming days...I will have a few days' enforced rest after tomorrow so I can do nothing but blog and such. So, wish me well, and I'll be back. Walt