Hello Control specialists,

You are all aware that GE-FANUC has taken over world leader Intellution. Can I have the view of the possible pros and cons on this issue from the user end.

Acc. to GE ,"both Cimplicity and Intellution products which were competitors previously will be promoted to the users based on the application size and needs.." --How far this can be feasible

This is an open topic for discussion.

Please put down your valuable suggestions.

Best regards
Jayaharan C J
Enterprise Process Solutions
Ramco Systems Limited

 

I would hardly call Intellution a world leader, neither is Cimplicity, and in this case 1+1 will be considerably less than two. If GE scrubbed resources allocated to Cimplicity, except for support of existing products, and redirected and focused on Intellution they will likely come out ahead, but various myopic departments won't be able to set aside their egos, so I'm not holding my breath.

 

It will be intersting to see how well GE does integrating Intellution and Cimplicity into an already poor sales channel. They are two distinct products with completely different functionality. This acquisition does give GE a historian but it is still weaker than OSI PI or Wonderware's IND. SQL. By the way Intellution isn't the World leader. They are about 2/3 the size of Wonderware.

 

GE is obviously trying to buy Market Share. GE and Intellution combined still won't equal Wonderware in terms of sales volume when you calculate street dollars. Emerson wouldn't of sold them if they thought Intellution had the right technology for the future. Remember, their Delta V system is based on Intellution's old Fix 32 technology. Bottom line is GE is trying to compete with Allen Bradley in the process PLC space and Cimplicity doesn't stack up against RS View or the real leader Wonderware. The big question is what did GE really buy except some software developer's?

 

My Plant is extremely impressed with GE's Open Process PLC and Cimplicity. Their control software is the easiest to use that we have come upon when comparing DCS's and PLC's or the so called Hybrid Systems. What are they going to do with this system is my question? Hopefully, they will leave it with Cimplicity since the integration of the control software is done and any changes to a system usually takes months. Our plant has used many HMI's and for the most psrt they can all work. It is the integration with the first level controller that is important. Comments?

 

Could not care less. Found Cimpicity cimplistic in many ways with not enough functionality for many projects.
Found Intellution had lots of problems with communicating with certain cards and our local distributor has not even bothered replying to emails. Neither did Intellution. It is also not very intuative.
I do not believe that putting the two together is going to change the world.
Found GE-Fanuc PLCs not that good. I became used to a large instruction set with Omron, an open plate as far as I/O and internal memory goes and do not want to go back to programming the hard way. Three registers for timers?
Favorite SCADA is Citect. Virtually no limit on I/O for large projects and quite a good scripting language built in. No charge for most protocols - what a bonus - as they come with the package. One of the few exceptions is AB who want a fee every time someone wants to use their driver in Citect. Rather expensive way of promoting your hardware.

 

I think GE is coming new range of product/PLC
for which Intellution might be useful, to save
on the lost time & wasted resources.

It is very late.

 

Automation List :

Please note the analysis of the GE-Fanuc acquisition of Intellution, reported in the JimPinto.com eNews, dated : 29 Oct. 2002.

A copy is available on the web at:
"http://www.jimpinto.com/enews/oct29-2002.html":http://www.jimpinto.com/enews/oct29-2002.html

This lists some open questions which remain to
be discussed.

Cheers::

jim
----------/
Jim Pinto
email : [email protected]
web: www.JimPinto.com
San Diego, CA., USA
----------/

 

This is GE's standard MO. They are not usually too successful at developing their own products, so they buy successful product lines from outside. This is where the Fanuc processors came from in the first place. Unfortunately, continued development is then neglected, and the product which seemed so good becomes one of the dogs of the market.

On the rare occasion when their own product is better than the competing one which they have acquired, they do a study, and after finding out that the acquired one is 0.000000001 cents per unit cheaper to make (although half the value), they jetison the more expensive (but better) one.

 

What will this mean to Delta-V?

George G. Robertson, P.E.
Manager of Engineering
Saulsbury E & C
grobertson(AT)si-tx.com
(915) 366-4252

 

> I would hardly call Intellution a world leader, neither is Cimplicity,
> and in this case 1+1 will be considerably less than two. If GE scrubbed
> resources allocated to Cimplicity, except for support of existing
> products, and redirected and focused on Intellution they will likely
> come out ahead, but various myopic departments won't be able to set
> aside their egos, so I'm not holding my breath.

Perhaps by world leader the OP meant market share. I believe that to be the case. Perhaps it is not the "leading" SCADA package by your own definition, but I think the marketplace has spoken differently.

I think the likely thing is they will try to merge big chunks of the development staff and then cut it to save money. Makes a lot of sense IF they can make it work. I'd bet they can't, and in the end, my guess is one or the other will be retired with some kind of concession to the losing package. Maybe some kind of free conversion utility (we all know how well those work) and a financial incentive for users to convert to the winning package (e.g.-turn in your Cimplicity license and get a Fix license in its place).

At one time didn't Cimplicity use Fix as its HMI front end?

If I had to guess, I would say Cimplicity is toast - give it 2 or 3 years.

Bob Peterson

 

The Inty iHistorian was developed by Mountain Systems and I would question if Inty owns it or if was a brand label agreement. The Mountain Systems historian if far superior to PI.

By the way Intellution isn't the World leader. They are about 2/3 the size of Wonderware.

 

This is a huge mistake no matter how that you look at it. Acquisitions in general are very hard to digest. Never mind one in which the acquiring company has overlapping products and intends to completely revamp all the products.

At the end of the day, GE Fanuc, a very small player in the manufacturing automation sector, bought a company from Emerson, a very large player in the manufacturing automation sector, and is going to obsolete all their products. I don't see any way to positively spin being sold off by Emerson, a very successful company that bought Intellution for a song many years ago.

It is clear that Intellution has a decent channel and large customer base. But there are already channel conflicts and a confused and angered customer base. What company wants to keep upgrading their automation system?

GE must have paid pretty good money for this company. In theory the company should have gone for about $200M which is less than half what Wonderware sold for. So GE spend $200M for a company whose products they are going to rewrite in a marketplace that is very mature and not growing at very high rate. Now they are saying that it is going to be 2-3 years, which translates to another $50M investment, to get their product suite ready. What companies are going to sit around and wait?

At this point the combined companies probably do about $70M a year in software sales which nets about $15M in profit. That means that it will take some 20 years to pay off this investment. GE corporate will not put up with this. They have been looking to sell off GE Fanuc for a long time. This just might be the straw that breaks the camels back.

 

Just a question for the comments on Wonderware being larger than GE Fanuc/Intellution. On what basis... Sales $$$ or # of license installs... You might want to do your homework.