New Officers for MESA were announced at the P2E (Plant to Enterprise) conference in Orlando recently. Taking over from Kevin Roach (late of GE and now with Rockwell Software) as Chairman is Karsten Newbury, Siemens Energy and Automation, General Manager,
Process Automation Systems and Manufacturing Execution Systems; Vice Chairman is Sudipta Bhattacharya of SAP, thus confirming that SAP really has changed its spots and actually appears to believe that enterprise integration is more than an automated balance sheet.

Other officers of note include Vivek Bapat and Matt Bauer of Rockwell Automation, Claus Abildgren, Invensys Wonderware, Program Manager, Production & Performance Management; Chris Colyer, Microsoft, Global Industry Director, Process Manufacturing, Manufacturing Industry Solutions; Bill Estep, GE Fanuc Automation Americas, Inc., Vice President, Automation
Solutions; Carter Johnson, Visiprise, V.P., Strategy and Business Development; Jürgen Kletti, MPDV Mikrolab GmbH, Founder, Chairman and CEO; Jim Ricigliano, Wyeth, Associate Director, MES Technical Operations & Product Supply, Business Process Management and Jonathon Siudut, IBM, Manager, Industrial Sector Development.

IBM's involvement in MESA alongside SAP may actually indicate that the Enterprise is recognizing that the problem of lack of realtime information doesn't lie with the plant floor, but rather the enterprise software systems. It is also nice to note that the vendors who dominate MESA have invited a couple of end users onto the board.

According to the MESA press release, a "record-setting" crowd enthusiastically participated.

Walt

The recent announcement by Maverick Technologies of the purchase of GE's system integrator business is really a directory of lost companies tale: Paul Galeski of Maverick originally got GE into the system integrator business by selling them his previous company, Magnum Technologies...and now he has it back, for rather less than GE paid for it originally, so I understand. Nicely done, Paul.

CSIA contacts note that the companion announcement of the GSIA or "Global System Integrator Alliance" (Maverick and an Asian-based partner) is "the highest form of flattery." GSIA is not a competitor of CSIA, which is a non-profit interest group and standards and benchmarking body. Rather, it is a competitor for integrator consortia like Automation Alliance Group (www.automationalliance.net).

Walt