Happy Fifth of July!

Most of you know that yesterday was a huge holiday in the United States, and a time to reflect on costs and benefits. Most of us believe that the liberty we have taken for ourselves in the United States has been worth the cost to defend it. In process automation, too, there are costs, and benefits from automation. Most of us also believe the benefits worth the cost. I've been told that I am an inverterate Pollyanna about the future of the automation profession, but I really don't think so. I think that the profession is changing and growing, and becoming less an isolated island of arcane knowledge and more of a critical and increasingly necessary tool set for process operations, and the huge hoorah that SAP is making about B2MML and standards-based interoperability just proves my case. Walt