[Updated] Time continues to fly by. The PTO General Assembly Meeting was over a month ago and I’m just finding time to report on it now. You didn’t really have to wait though since Control Engineering reported on it as it ended: “PTO reports high growth, cross-industry collaboration.” And Automation World wasn’t far behind: “PTO to Step Up Profinet Promotion.”A couple things stand out in my view. One was the Collaboration Corner, a reminder of how connected we are. Ron Helson of the HART Communication Foundation (HCF) reminded everyone of the long-standing cooperation between the PROFIBUS and HART communities. This is especially apparent in the Wireless Cooperation Team (WCT) where PI, HCF, and Fieldbus Foundation collaborate. These are really complementary technologies more than competitors. Tom Burke of the OPC Foundation brought us up-to-date on the EDDL Cooperation Team (ECT) which is working to develop a successor to both EDDL and FDT that preserves investment in each.[Update] Automation.com rang in with their very comprehensive report from the GAM: “PROFIBUS Hits New Highs…over 23 million installed nodes!” Note that we hit 23,300,000 at the end of 2007 and surpassed 25,000,000 this past April.I was also glad to see our members actively debate some of the marketing challenges we face. They agreed that we should actively promote PROFIBUS/PROFINET and quit making them look so different. This is an excellent position since they really do work well together by design (as I posted earlier).
Tomorrow is our PROFIBUS one-day training event in San Antonio. I arrived here early and walked the Riverwalk. If you are in this part of Texas, I hope to see you tomorrow. Even if you did not register yet, you can still come – I’ll hold a seat for you.