The fruitful joining of unlike minds

To some, pairing software vendor Wonderware and automation vendor Foxboro under the Invensys Group umbrella makes for an "odd couple." Wonderware, at least in its infancy, was known for over-the-top marketing aimed at maverick process engineers. Foxboro has been the epitome of the white-shirt-and-tie, engineering-driven company.

Foxboro is a leader in the hydrocarbons, power, and pulp & paper industries; while Wonderware, installed in more than 100,000 plants, says its largest vertical industry segment barely breaks double-digits as a percentage of total business.

Yet according to Mike Caliel, president of Invensys Process Systems, although operated as separate companies, "Foxboro lends to Wonderware depth in domain expertise," says Caliel, "while Wonderware brings a technology platform to bear that can be applied regardless of the control system involved. Foxboro is infusing its core products with Wonderware's ArchestrA technology for comprehensive information management."

Wonderware President Mike Bradley is especially juiced about the release of Industrial Application Server 2.0, built on ArchestrA; and improving scalability from "250 I/O on a single node to one million I/O across 100 nodes," a benchmark validated at Microsoft's Partners Solutions Center.