11 October 2007

Industrial wireless quadrille

By Jim Pinto

Most companies in the automation industry recognize Wireless as a new "inflection point" which will generate significant growth and market share for the leaders. So, the "Wireless Wars" are generating wild and wacky posturing and dancing around.

This kind of noise is similar to what occurred during the "Fieldbus Wars" which started almost 2 decades ago. ISA was coordinating the SP50 Fieldbus standard, which never really got anywhere. In the end, some 10-15 different industrial networking protocols were approved as "standards". The situation was too funny to write about in regular prose–people would be offended by clear statements of what was happening. So, I turned to poetry–a crisp, lucid way of describing the situation.

Here is my new poem on the Wireless Wars, in the lilt of The Lobster Quadrille from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland.

"Will you walk a little faster!" cried Honeywell to the ISA snail
"There's an Emerson right behind me and he's treading on my tail!
We need ISA-100 now for wireless to advance
End users have been waiting long and they will join the dance
Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you join the dance?

"You can really have no notion how delightful it will be,
With this broader standard, why can't we just agree?"
"WirelessHART!" cried Emerson and would not change their stance
ABB, Siemens, E+H too, just would not join the dance.
Would not, could not, would not, could not, would not join the dance!

"Let’s join our games, pretend we're friends!" then Emerson replied
"'Cause everyone wants WirelessHART, it's ready NOW beside
ISA-100 will take too long, it really has no chance
So why don't you just join our game and then we both can dance!
Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, won't you join the dance?"

Honeywell an open letter wrote, "Can't you see that HART's too narrow?
ISA-100 includes all protocols that we will need tomorrow."
Then lots of others gave their view, each trying to enhance
With open letters flying around, it was the strangest dance
Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you join the dance?

These wireless wars have now become a Fieldbus déjà vu
New SP-100 equals old SP-50 times two
The industry keeps spinning ‘round while the leading vendors prance
Each seeking the advantage in this latest wireless dance
Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you join the dance?

The wireless market's growing fast and who will be the champ?
The lobbying goes on to see who now will join which camp
In this dance and whirligig, are end users there perchance?
'Cause this is for them, the vendors swear, as they prolong the dance
Will they, won't they, will they, won't they, will they join the dance?

Related links:

Lewis Carroll's original poem - Lobster Quadrille:
http://www.online-literature.com/carroll/901/

Read Jim Pinto's Fieldbus Poems:
http://jimpinto.com/poems.html

Pinto 1990 poem - The Fieldbus Quadrille
http://jimpinto.com/writings/fieldbus.html

Behind the byline
Jim Pinto is an industry analyst and founder of Action Instruments. You can e-mail him at jim@jimpinto.com or view his writings at www.JimPinto.com. Read the Table of Contents of his book, Pinto’s Points, at www.jimpinto.com/writings/points.html.