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Views from The S4 Group's founder and owner on the company, the industry and anything else that's on his mind.
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Some of our readers have commented that many of the articles in the last few newsletters have addressed significant enhancements to our existing products. In this issue, discussions about the new products we are testing are even more frequent. Readers will be seeing more details about these new products in next month’s issue as well as periodic status updates, as those products move to field test sites and are installed in real world situations. I would like to initiate an interactive discussion about where we should focus our R&D efforts after these new products are in full production and we can turn our resources in other directions.
We try to reach out to our integration partners through our product presentation and surveys on our web site to determine priorities. At a very broad level, this slide from the product presentation introduces where we have the potential to go in the areas of services, downstream protocols, and upstream protocols.
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Over the last months I’ve been asked to explain why our integration partners should use the S4 Open: BACnet-N2 Router instead of the BACnet interface provided by a N30 or NAE, using a JCI Facility Explorer, or using a Tridium platform with on on-board N2 driver. There are a lot of different ways to answer this question and to be complete you need to address both organizational and technical issues.
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Day 2 was just as busy as yesterday. The AHR daily news claimed that it is the biggest event yet. It shure looked that way in the event halls. It was really gratifying to be recognized when we walked into the BAS manufacturer booths. Even more important was when our work was recognized for its quality and leadership in the integration business. Everyone had great things to say about their experiences with the S4 Open: BACnet-N2 Router and were anxious to hear more about the upcoming BACnet-EnOcean Gateway. We have a meeting scheduled today about a possible major project as soon as the product is released. Last night we were one of the sponsors for the EnOcean networking dinner. It was a great event with virtually everyone who was invited attending. We met a few of our Integration Partners there and continued our discussions from the show while we enjoyed the view from the 95th floor of the John Hancock building.
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Lots of activity, good crowds around the EnOcean Alliance booth. Good feedback about our directions on the S4 Open: BACnet-EnOcean Router as well as on our current products. When we return to the office we’ll need to push hard to get this product released. Met with our distributor for Eastern Canada, AFDtek. They have just revised their web site and have a section on S4 products. They are very busy. It seems that the economy must be doing well there. We also met with our Integrator Partner KMI Controls about several projects they are working on or planning. Today will be another busy day with several meetings planned, wanting to spend time at each controls manufacturer booth, and the EnOcean Alliance networking dinner tonight which we are helping sponsor.
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We are pleased to welcome RoviSys as the most recent addition to the S4 Group Integration Partner Program. They are unique as an independent integration company with their roots in the industrial automation and process control industries. This brings a broad base of expertise with large, complex, integration projects having completed more than 2,500 projects for more than 300 companies in nearly 100 industries. RoviSys is leveraging this expertise to offer open systems solutions in the building automation and energy management industries. RoviSys is unique in that they integrate all of your building and HVAC controls, software, and networking into a single system. For additional information on the building automation services offered by RoviSys, visit their website.
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