Can Automation Vendors Regain Their Strategic Relevance?  Today
almost all of the major control systems suppliers are making
massive investments in software.  The question is whether these
investments will actually allow the control systems vendors to
compete against software intensive firms like SAP, Microsoft,
Google or Oracle?  Digital technology has embedded itself in all
aspects of machinery.  From the blender on the kitchen counter
to the Boeing 787, microprocessor technology is the brains
behind most every device in our daily lives.  So in some
respects a company that makes machinery, including the major
control systems suppliers, already are to some degree, software
companies.  However there are major differences between software
embedded in a device which must operate in absolute real-time
and enterprise software designed for human interaction and which
deals with information that has a time span of minutes, days,
months years or even decades.  This is not a new phenomenon - It
first surfaced in the