Rockwell comes calling...and neglects to tell us something big.

Yesterday, we had a big circus from Rockwell Automation-- Rick Dolezal and his merry band of insurgents within Rockwell who think they can make Rockwell a force in process automation... And it seems they are no longer insurgents, and that they are winning. Dolezal noted that Chairman Keith Nosbusch is pushing process automation as their biggest growth area when he talks to analysts. This, of course, puts Rick in the position of the person talking to the highwayman...he has to "stand and deliver" the goods. But, as Scott Anthony, Commercial Program Manager- Process Automation, and a candidate for "longest business card title award of 2007" and Mike Vernak, the legacy DCS migration program manager put it, "we have case studies, and customers, and they're willing to talk about it." So stay tuned to Control for some of these stories. In addition, Dolezal took a detour to celebrate Rockwell's "living in sin" arrangement with Endress+Hauser. I know from talking to both sides that this relationship is getting deeper and the commitment stronger by both sides on a daily basis. This is going to be quite an interesting relationship because now they are getting to the nubby part: handling joint service and rescue calls. Dolezal said that they've evolved policies where calls for help get routed directly to E+H when they concern E+H products. "We don't want to stand there pointing" like the scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz movie, he said. The object is to provide service to the customer.