"InFusion is REAL!" So says Grant LeSueur, InFusion's Product Marketing Director. Built around Invensys' interesting, although questionably useful "collaboration wall" the platform components actually exist, according to LeSueur. These include:
*Production Events Module
*Pump Monitor Module
*Loop Monitor Module
*Enterprise Integration Modules
*Refinery Scheduler
*Wellhead Optimization Module
*Instrument Monitor Module
LeSueur noted that a just released module is the InFusion Condition Manager.
"We're moving," he said, "from being a supplier with a box of Legos you can make do anything to a company with a set of Solution Starter Templates that have a clear value association with the solution, a set of required parts, diagrams, pictures, examples, and instructions."
He said that he keeps being asked to "show us case studies," but wasn't able to do that in his presentation, except to note that there was a Candadian mining operation "where the only way to get hold of them was by satellite phone."
He concluded by noting that InFusion was, in fact, real.
Charles Johnson, whose job title is the likely winner of the longest job title contest and gets bigger every time I run into him, is the worldwide manufacturing industry managing director for the enterprise partner group (see what I mean) at Microsoft. He's the one who's been shepherding the Microsoft/Invensys alliance through the storms and shoals of the past few years...while staying friends with all of Invensys' competition at the same time.
Charles described how the Microsoft-based underpinnings of Archestra and InFusion work, but above all, he pointed out that it is people who make operational excellence happen. "We all know what the drivers are," he said, "and what the key emerging trends are. Globally Microsoft's customers all face the same things..."
He contrasted the business process of the past (the "happy path" solution) with the real world expansive view that Microsoft, and Invensys, espouse.
"You heard it here," he crowed. "A Microsoft executive says, 'it is not about the desktop.' It is about mobility, collaboration, enterprise search, business intelligence, customer management, and so forth."
Microsoft believes that its job is to connect to what's already there, extract more value from what's already there, extend and
evolve what's already there, while making the enterprise more secure.
Johnson showed a dramatic video about realtime consultative design of a new, responsive automobile seat. It showed some neat technologies, including some unique display technologies, as well as way-in-the-forefront collaboration technologies. Neat stuff.
He discussed some case studies (only one of which I think had anything to do with InFusion) to show that Microsoft helps its partners work with clients.
Charles is a dynamic and vibrant flag waver for the Microsoft cause, and today's discussion wasn't any departure from the norm.
