Invensys: Well, now what, dammit?

As Andrew Bond reported last week in his Industrial Automation Insider, Mike Caliel, the extremely well respected CEO of Invensys Process Systems, resigned unexpectedly to take a job as CEO of Houston-based Integrated Electrical Services (IES), a large-scale system integration firm. This, of course, poses a problem for Invensys' end users. Even though Ken Brown, general manager of SimSci-Esscor and Foxboro, became interim President within hours, and is known to be seeking the job on a permanent basis, this illustrates the rather illusory solidity that Invensys is trying to project. It appears that no matter what the hardy and dedicated little band of mostly Foxboro folks can do to keep the Massachusetts Titanic afloat, bad stuff keeps happening to Invensys. Were I an end-user, I'd be kinda worried. The continuing rumors of immanent acquisition aren't helping, either. Caliel once told me that he viewed London as, "the same as gravity. You have to do business with gravity. We have to do business with London." I guess he got tired of fighting with the law of gravity to keep IPS off the ground. Too bad. Caliel gets my vote for one of the four or five most competent CEOs in the process automation world.