industrialNETworX

Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come

This quotation is not from me, of course, it’s from – I don’t know, and look it up in Wikipedia. This is what I find there: “This is a quotation falsely attributed to the French poet Victor Hugo”. I should be able to ask someone.
My son is studying automation engineering and asks his network questions in StudiVZ. He communicates via this network, exchanges information, helps others, too.

This is called Web 2.0 or Social Web. Online communities are growing unbelievably quickly. Facebook have reached more than 300 million members. Just have a look at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIFYPQjYhv8 and just think about the effects this can have on us and on our companies in the automation technology. Ten years ago, would we have believed that an Ethernet can change industrial communication so radically?

Open Source is another idea for which the time has come, and will have a long-term effect on our business models. Linux, real-time operating systems such as eCos, software developed for automation and machine industry by members of OSADL or Powerlink Open Source protocol stacks are an indication of this development.

We have been dealing with automation and communication in particular for the past twenty years. As managing director and owner, it is my task to recognise trends and not waste time implementing these. Five years ago, we presented netX, a controller technology that controls all industrial networks. Today, we are taking the next step and presenting the netX Community platform.
Here, we combine knowledge of network technologies with the people who use them. A platform on which developers, product managers and users can ask questions, exchange experience and initiate joint projects. We are making netX technology available as Open Source and attempting to do justice to the possibilities of Social Web.

Please have a more detailed look at the Community page.

Communication is at the heart of this, too, though not in our familiar technical area. We are going to need a little time and have to learn by our mistakes before everything runs smoothly, the community comes to life and everyone can benefit from it. This is why we are doing the set-up phase so transparently and ask you to join in and work in the community now. In return, we promise we will check every suggestion seriously and implement it to the benefit of the community.

I am curious to see whether we and industrialNETworX will fulfil the requirements, and wish us all every success.