Interesting news shaping up from Invensys Operations Management. The company had decided not to hold a single, large user conference–OpsManage–this year. Instead it would hold several smaller, regional ones. Then I suddenly saw a notice that the Foxboro unit was holding a traditional process systems user conference.
There still has been no official notice to the press about the group, but I’ve been receiving periodic updates–as have many of you, I’m sure.
I found last week’s update, which included a message from new IOM President and CEO Mike Caliel, interesting, to say the least.
Remember a brief amount of history–the Invensys plc board decided to bring Invensys Process Systems and Wonderware together into Invensys Operations Management; it further decided that its future was software; it then named Sudipta Bhattacharya as CEO of the combined group; then it subsequently lost its nerve, replaced Bhattacharya with Caliel seemingly to re-emphasize process systems over software. Throughout this ordeal, as well as the regime prior to this, the Foxboro people felt disenfranchised and unwanted.
This review is only meant for context for these remarks from Caliel in this latest newsletter:
Since my return to Invensys, I have committed to re-invigorating the collaborative customer communities associated with our products and brands. This is particularly important to me with a brand such as Foxboro, which has a rich history of technology firsts, meaningful customer input, and industry innovation.
As a part of this re-invigoration, I invite you to join me and a number of key executives and technical leaders in Boston at the Foxboro User Group Conference on August 13-17.
Designed specifically for Foxboro I/A Series users’ technical and business needs, the technology-rich content will include solutions, product information and best practices focused on helping users optimize their existing assets while paving a clear, cost-effective path to the future.
This event conflicts with another meeting to which I’m committed as a discussion leader. So I won’t see you there. But let me know how it goes.
