Yr 'umble servant is taking a week off. Nancy Bartels will do her best to fill the blog with interesting, timely and useful items while I'm gone.

Have a nice week!

Walt Boyes

A new ARC study by Larry O'Brien, my co-author on the Control/ARC Automation Top 50 every December, shows that the DCS business continues despite the recession for some very good reasons, and the automation companies are finding salvation in the services business.

Here's what ARC had to say about the study:

In sharp counterpoint to the news over the past days that many stock analysts are downgrading ROK stock because of slow demand, ARC has published a new report indicating that the PLC market isn't as dead as thought. Here's hoping Himansu Shah at ARC is right on the money! Might could be that some of the Wall Street Analysts covering the automation industry (except for a few, and you know who you are) should be reading this set of tea leaves...

Here's what the ARC press release had to say about their report:

Our intrepid OUT of Control reporter sent us this set of lyrics, and then sent us another email: "I can't believe it!  I just got a link to this song from "Chemical Processing Weekly"  a Putman publication.  "Putman" is an amazing company.  You probably saw and heard it already.  Sorry to bother you!"

Well, it is no bother Joe. It so happens that both Mark Rosenzweig, editor of Chemical Processing, and I are fans of Great Big Sea. So here are your GBS lyrics, along with a link to the video.

Invensys figures it out—Sudipta Bhattacharya on the new ecosystem of Invensys Operations Management

I received yesterday a review copy of Bianca Scholten's latest book: MES Guide for Executives: Why and How to Select, Implement, and Maintain a Manufacturing Execution System. It is published by ISA Press. I'm going to read it over the weekend and I'll let you know what I think.

Nothing Shakespearean or tragic about this. Just a snip from Andrew Bond's latest INSIDER report on testing of Foundation fieldbus technology in Glasgow. Here's what Andrew reports:

Some of you may know that in my spare time I write and edit science fiction and fantasy. I wish I could do more of it, but unfortunately, writing for the non-fiction market and editing Control makes me a far better living than I could make writing what I truly love. The fact is, most of the people writing science fiction and fantasy simply can't make a living at it, despite the love and care and craft they bring to the art-- and despite loyal fans. Most of us have day jobs.