Mazak and Memex Data Driven Manufacturing Article in Modern Machine Shop

There is no better writer in manufacturing than Mark Albert of Modern Machine Shop and certainly no better MTConnect advocate.

Modern Machine Shop has an excellent article titled, "Data-Driven Manufacturing Moves Ahead at Mazak" that discusses Mazak utilizing MTConnect at Mazak’s North American Headquarters and Technology Center in Florence, Ky.

This is a great quote in the article by Brian Papke, President of Mazak USA:  “This total embrace of MTConnect was intended to make a statement,” Mr. Papke says. “We wanted to be a leader in both promoting and implementing MTConnect. We wanted our example to show the country the importance of moving toward data-driven manufacturing. MTConnect is an essential part of what makes data-driven manufacturing possible.”

Every machine tool monitoring company went after this business that I can think of and Memex Automation ended up winning by a landslide.  Below is a snippet of the article that discusses our solutions at Memex, called MERLIN:

Since November, all of these machines have been connected to the machine monitoring system, which uses MERLIN MES monitoring software developed by Memex Automation (Burlington, Ontario). MERLIN (Manufacturing Execution Real-time Lean Information Network) is a manufacturing execution system and machine-to-machine communications platform. Memex has been providing network connectivity, DNC software and machine monitoring systems since 1992 and has offered MTConnect-compatible versions of its MERLIN machine monitoring and manufacturing execution systems since 2010.

Dave McPhail, President and Chairman of the Board for Memex Automation stated the value proposition below:

“Rather than offering an expensive, custom installation for every client, we’ve produced a packaged, machine-to-machine toolkit adaptable by all manufacturers. The technological breakthrough here is that MERLIN is an MTConnect-based hardware and software module that does not require programming or setting up of PLCs. The MES leverages a company’s existing investment in plant, equipment and enterprise software,” says David McPhail, president and CEO of Memex Automation."

Neil Desrosiers of Mazak stated the history of the task force and why Memex's MERLIN was selected:

"This supplier was selected after a task force headed by Neil Desrosiers, Mazak’s developer of digital solutions, evaluated numerous commercial monitoring systems. This task force included IT personnel, machine operators, shopfloor supervisors and managers from the machining department. Two factors tipped the choice to MERLIN. The most important of these was the apparent ease with which reports could be configured for various users within the company. The other was the ability to store collected data and archived reports locally on a dedicated network server rather than on remote storage accessible on the Internet (the “cloud”), a concession to security concerns raised by the IT team."

Ben Schwawe, VP of Manufacturing at the Florence, KY Mazak facility stated:

"The machine monitoring system appears to be a good example of this sort of technology. In operation since November, the system has yielded significant benefits, initially by uncovering some easily fixed inefficiencies and practices. Mr. Schawe says that these fixes have increased uptime by 6.2 percent across the 15 machines that are fully integrated into the system. “This was that low-hanging fruit, so to speak,” he says. “We’ve also recognized some opportunities to make additional gains from efforts such as putting greater emphasis on having replacements for worn tools ready to go.” Taken together, these efforts have yielded a 17 percent improvement in utilization for the monitored machines so far.

But over and above these benefits is the advantage of having a system that takes the guesswork out of tracking machine utilization. “We can tell at a glance how we are doing, and the basis is in real-time data,” Mr. Schawe explains."

This is a true inflection point in not only MTConnect, but in Mazak's and Memex Automation's history. 

Thanks to Mark Albert for writing this fantastic article!

MTInsight's IMTS 2014 App: Lightning Strikes Twice

Note: I wrote this for the Mar 18, 2014 IMTS Insider

  

MTInsight's IMTS 2014 App: Lightning Strikes Twice

By
Dave Edstrom

In May 2012, I wrote an IMTS Insider article called, “The Killer App from MTInsight: IMTS 2012 App.” As I wrote in that article, a killer app is defined as an application that is so innovative that it creates its own category. It sells itself because it becomes an “absolute must-have.” Well, lightning has struck twice because the MTInsight's IMTS 2014 App is not only a killer app, but if you are an IMTS exhibitor and have not yet looked into what this app can offer you, then you are missing the single greatest opportunity to go from having a good IMTS experience to having a great IMTS experience. No matter the size of your booth, you should absolutely invest in MTInsight's IMTS 2014 App because it is the best bang for the buck going for IMTS.

 Two years ago, I wrote “MTInsight's IMTS 2012 is a killer app because 9 out of 10 exhibitors who receive a demo from AMT's Steve Lesnewich, Mark Kennedy or Kim Brown buy the IMTS 2012 App. Let me repeat that number in case you thought it was a typo — a 90% close ratio. Certainly Steve, Mark, and Kim are fantastic at what they do, but I would suggest that it is the tremendous value of MTInsight's IMTS 2012 App that basically sells itself.” IMTS 2014 is built upon the rock solid capabilities of the 2012 app. We have taken an over-the-fence home run and knocked it completely out of the park this time.

Many readers of the IMTS Insider have attended one of the IMTS 2014 workshops, where the MTInsight team talked about Identify, Invite and Impress at the as the pillars for the IMTS 2014 App. I believe there is a fourth pillar of the IMTS 2014 App and it is “I2” or “Increase Income.” IMTS exhibitors want to put money back in the till from new sales that never would have occurred if not for being at IMTS and using the app.

Let's look at what happens at IMTS without the IMTS 2014 App; in fact, it is what happens at every trade show. Whether or not it is a manufacturing trade show, such as IMTS, or one of the other countless trade shows, the problems are the same. The number one challenge is getting the most number of qualified customers to your booth at the right time. While that sounds easy, it is quite hard, as all of you exhibitors know.

The first pillar of the IMTS 2014 App is Identify. How do you identify the right leads for your company at IMTS? MTInsight's IMTS 2014 app is the only source to reach out to those who have registered to attend IMTS 2014 prior to the show. There are a number of categories to select from to really focus on the types of prospects that you want to invite to your booth.

There is also a second important aspect of the first Identify pillar and that is booth staffing. How do you identify the type and number of people that you need in your booth? What is the right combination of sales people and technical people? What day and what time do you need the right combination of sales and technical people? Do you schedule a small seminar in the morning or in the afternoon? Which day is best? When should lunch be scheduled? When can folks leave the booth to go meet with someone else or check out the competition?

Think you need a crystal ball for those questions? Think again! Those questions can be answered with MTInsight's IMTS 2014 App, which shows attendance in different parts of the buildings on an hour-by-hour basis for the previous IMTS, a good indicator of traffic for the coming year, as well. The savings from properly staffing your booth can pay for the IMTS 2014 App many times over. This is before you have registered one additional sale because you purchased the app.

Invite is the second pillar and where we have enhanced the IMTS 2014 App. In 2012, we heard from a number of users of the IMTS 2012 App that they absolutely loved the app, but if they had one request, it would be to have a built-in way to email registrants. Well, that feature has been added to the 2014 app! It works in four easy steps:

• Setup your email campaign
• Select your list
• Create your email
• Send your email campaign

There is also a campaign reporting function that can be helpful in tracking different email campaigns.

The third pillar is Impress. After you have invited a prospect to your booth, you have an opportunity to do some research on that prospect ahead of time. You can learn about their business and some of the challenges they are having before they show up at your booth. As we all know, that is the difference between a typical salesperson and a great salesperson. This pre-work will allow you to impress your prospects and hopefully lead to the final pillar, which is “I2 — Increase Income.”

Hopefully, at this point, you realize that the ROI for MTInsight's IMTS 2014 App is not just the additional sales that can be pinpointed of the app, but rather there are a number of areas you saved money. Money was saved by properly staffing your booth and reaching out to the right set of registrants. These are the registrants who can best be served by your products or services, so that you have a much higher ratio of prospects versus tire kickers.

What about the top line? What about income? If we looked at the average price of a product or service at IMTS, it would only take one or two additional sales to pay for the IMTS 2014 App. How often can you say that about a product?

If all this sounds too good to be true and you are questioning some of my claims, then please request to see a demo! You can go to www.MTInsight.org and request a demo of the IMTS 2014 App.

Finally, if I could offer only one single piece of advice for any exhibitor at IMTS 2014, go buy MTInsight's IMTS 2014 App. It will be the best investment that you will spend this year for any trade show that you attend. This is why I believe that lightning truly has struck twice with the IMTS 2014 App. Make your IMTS 2014 the best ever and buy MTInsight's IMTS 2014 App today!

MTInsight is the name given for the platform of game-changing business intelligence tools that are critical to succeed in today's manufacturing world. As is stated on the website, “MTInsight is based on three key elements: dynamic software, AMT's experience and analysis, and our unique data warehouse — all of the information AMT tracks on your markets, benchmarking surveys, industry forecasts, your competitors, customers and supply chain.” Go to the website to see all the other apps available to help you become more successful.

Obama Killing The Patent Trolls

Hopefully this article by David Kravets in Wired will be true.  Here is a snippet:

"A patent troll is generally understood to be a corporation that exists to stockpile patents for litigation purposes, instead of to build products. Often taking advantage of vague patent claims and a legal system slanted in the plaintiff’s favor, the company uses the patents to sue or threaten to sue other companies, with an eye to settling out of court for a fraction of what they were originally seeking.

The nation’s legal dockets are littered with patent cases with varying degrees of merit, challenging everything from mobile phone push notifications and podcasting to online payment methods and public Wi-Fi. Some 2,600 companies were targeted in new patent lawsuits last year alone.

Against that backdrop, Obama issued five executive orders on patent reform last summer. Among other things, they require the Patent and Trademark Office to stop issuing overly broad patents, and to force patent applicants to provide more details on what invention they are claiming. One of the orders opens up patent applications for public scrutiny — crowdsourcing — while they are in the approval stage, to help examiners locate prior art and assist with analyzing patent claims."

Tim Cook Takes A Stand on the Climate Change Deniers

This was very interesting to watch Tim Cook act like Steve Jobs:

"But Cook does care about the environment — and that became very clear on Friday, when the CEO had a terse exchange with an anti-environmental lobbying group"

snip...

"Cook's response was blistering. First of all, he insisted, environmental efforts also make economic sense. Even so, "we do a lot of things for reasons besides profit motive," the CEO said. "We want to leave the world better than we found it."

Anyone who had a problem with that? They should sell their Apple shares. "Get out of the stock," Cook suggested."

Is This How We Will Start Reading?

Check this out what might be a new way to read - at 500 words per minute.

Congratulations to Dr. Dean Bartles Executive Director of the New Digital Lab for Manufacturing in Chicago

I am quite fortunate to call Dr. Dean Bartles my friend.  Dean is on the MTConnect Board of Directors and his counsel was priceless when I was President and Chairman of the Board for the MTConnect Institute.   I could not be more thrilled that he is the new Executive Director of the New Digital Lab for Manufacturing!

"In support of President Obama’s National Network for Manufacturing Innovation (NNMI), the U.S. Department of Defense has awarded a grant to UI Labs in Chicago to create the Digital Lab for Manufacturing. This lab will be part of a consortium to develop and demonstrate digital manufacturing technologies and deploy and commercialize these technologies across key manufacturing industries."

In addition, the following is brought out by Dr. Bartles:

“The opportunity to join such a strong team at UI Labs and be part of the manufacturing renaissance that President Obama has launched through the establishment of the NNMI is the opportunity of a lifetime,” Bartles said."

Congratulations Dean!  This is great for the new Digital Lab for Manufacturing in Chicago, great for manufacturing, great for the United States of America and I am sure great for the Dean and his family!

13 Essential Tools to Check Cross-Browser Compatibility

I thought this was an interesting article cross-browser compatibility by Grace Smith on Mashable.

Two Floor Tickets - Wizards vs. Magic - Priceless 80th Birthday Celebration With Slim

Tuesday evening, my father aka Slim, my mother, aka Weasie (both nicknames that I gave my parents in the 1970s that I have called them ever since - read my book to learn why :), my wife Julie and I went to the Wizards vs. Magic at the Verizon Center.

I have Wizards season tickets with long time friend and former next door neighbor Peter Eelman.  As season ticket holders, we enjoy a number of perks each year.  One of the main perks is we have a great Senior Guest Services Specialist in Tony Duffy.  Tony helped get the whole night setup.  In the middle of the 2nd quarter, Tony came buy with two bags of Wizards items for my father.  In the bags were:

•  Signed Bradley Beal plaque with a piece of a game worn jersey when Bradley had his highest scoring game ever for the Wizards.
•  Wizards game warmup jacket.
•  Wizards golf balls.
•  DC-12 glasses.
•  Wizards coasters.
• A message was put on the Verizon Center's four large screens:
•  Happy Birthday Lt. Col. John K. Edstrom!

 

That is Tony above with my father giving him the many gifts.  I want to express my sincere thanks to Tony for making this such a great night for my father and me!

A perk that was happening the night of the game was a "Chalk Talk" where the Wizards guest services had the Directors of player personnel for the Wizards, Capitals, Redskins and Nationals all talk about player contracts.  Below is my father in the Wizards cap before the event started. I asked a question on what happened with the $36 million penalty the Redskins had a few years back.

We are in front of the "M" Lounge which is only for those patrons who have first row court side seats.

When you have court side seats, it comes with free drinks and food.  We ate at all three of the court side restaurants - "M" Lounge, Courtside Clube and Dewar's Coaches Club.

 

Standing in front of our seats.

Enjoying our free drinks and food in our super comfortable seats.

As we were sitting down, Steve Buckhantz, play-by-play announcer for the Washington Wizards on TV (along with Phil Chenier who is the color commentary part of the great team) was finishing up his pre-game broadcast when he was walking off the court to head upstairs to do the game.  I ran into Steve and asked him to wish my father an happy 80th birthday which he gladly did.

Before the game my father had a friend come over, Chris Sanders, who is the grandson of my father's good friend Oscar Sanders.  Oscar passed away in 2008. Chris has first row floor seats at Wizards games.  That is Chris getting up after sitting down with my father.  Chris is very fast or Julie was taking the photo from section 402, I can't remember which is true :)

Above is my father with the legend of the Milwaukee Bucks and the Washington Bullets - Bobby Dandridge.   I was in the tunnel and I ran into Bobby and we started talking.  I had met Bobby once before at an autograph signing session and I remember how nice he was there, so I thought I would walk up to him to ask him a huge favor. 

I told him that me and my father were huge fans of his and we were there in 1978 when he helped lead the Bullets to a world championship.  I asked him if he would mind walking out to our seats and wishing my father a happy 80th birthday and getting his photo with my father.  He said, "of course!" As we walked up, we were told to wait by security because it was during a pre-game presentation.  Bobby could tell that I felt I had missed the window for him to speak with my dad, so he said to me, "it's all right, we have time.  It's not like I am playing tonight, right?"  I told Bobby that I remember when he became a member of the Washington Bullets and I read in the Washington Post that a driving reason that Bob Ferry (Bullets GM) picked up Bobby was because he read a quote by Julius Dr. J Erving that "no one checked him better than Bobby Dandridge".  Bobby said to me, "that was awful nice of him to say that".

THE absolute happiest I have ever seen my father, "hey slim, there is someone here I would like you to meet" and he looked up and saw Bobby Dandridge .  My father popped up out of his seat like he was shot out of a cannon and started shaking Bobby's hand and had the biggest smile I have ever seen him have.  My father said to him, "oh this is GREAT, we saw you play back in the 70s when you won it all!"

As wikipedia states on Bobby Dandridge:  "Named to the NBA All-Rookie Team in 1970, Dandridge was also an important part of the Milwaukee Bucks team that won the NBA championship in 1971 alongside the Hall-of-Fame duo of Lew Alcindor (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) and Oscar Robertson. Dandridge is usually mentioned as one of the NBA's best forwards in the 1970s. He played a total of 13 seasons in the NBA, nine of them with the Bucks as well as four with the Washington Bullets, with whom he won an NBA championship in 1978 while forming the frontcourt with another future Hall-of-Fame duo: Elvin Hayes and Wes Unseld."

I can honestly say that Bobby Dandridge is my favorite Bullet/Wizard of all time because he defines what a class act truly is both on the court and in life.  I cannot thank him enough for taking time out of his night to speak with me and then walk out of the tunnel and spend some time with my father.

Above is John Wall - first round pick for the Wizards, NBA All-Star and the 2014 NBA slam dunk champion.  John had an incredible night scoring 27 points.

I was speaking with one of the Wizards Girls and asked her if she could get a Wizards t-shirt for my father.  She brought over one for him and one for me.

The picture above and below were taken by my wife, Julie, from our regular season ticket seats in section 402.

Above is John Wall bringing the ball up, just in front of us, with his running mate Bradley Beal.  John Wall and Bradley Beal are the two most gifted (and youngest) guards in all of the NBA.  Bradley had 21 points that night.

Wizards won 115 to 106 to cap off a perfect night!

At the end of the game, Zach Leonsis, son of the Wizards/Capitals/Mystics/Verizon Center Ted Leonsis, wished my father a happy 80th birthday as well.  Zach was sitting three seats away from us and I asked him to wish my father a happy birthday - which he gladly did.  The whole Leonsis family is a class act.

Above is the selfie that Slim took the next day wearing the Wizards warmup that Tony Duffy gave him.

As the old Mastercard commercials used to state:

"Price of two floor tickets at a Wizards game $1,500   Watching your father have the time of his life and have Bobby Dandridge personally wish him a happy 80th birthday - PRICELESS!"

Crowd Sourcing Patents

There is an interesting article on crowd sourcing patents titled, "Obama advisers want to “crowdsource” patents, call again for new law" at arstechnica.

As the article by Joe Mullin - Feb 20 2014, 5:37pm EST starts off:  

"In June, President Barack Obama called for action against patent trolls. Today the White House held a short conference updating what has happened in the arena of patent policy since then and announced new initiatives going forward—including one to "crowdsource" the review of patents.

"I don't think we felt like we had a choice but to take action on the issue of patent trolls," said Obama economic adviser Gene Sperling at today's event. "What we were seeing wasn't a trend upward [in patent threats], it was a hockey stick."

Patent trolls are killing innovation and the Obama administration needs to take serious action.  Personally, I would like to see that there would be NO patents for software because of the patent trolls are getting patents for absolutely obvious and non-innovative ideas.  These patent trolls are not creating any value, they are just trying to be the "mafia of the Internet".  They serve no useful purpose and only add tremendous cost to the equation.

Mr. Mullin brings out one of the fundamental problems:

"Unless the crowd-sourcing initiatives were to put major new burdens on applicants—which would be resisted—the fundamentals of patent examination aren't going to change. Patent examiners get an average of eighteen hours to review a patent. Most importantly, examiners effectively can't say "no" to applicants. They can reject a particular application, but there's no limit to the number of amendments and re-drafts an applicant can submit."

We will have to see if Obama follows through on this....

Dinner in Old Town Alexandria

Julie and I went to Old Town Alexandria for dinner Saturday night.  Perfect day to take her Mini Cooper S convertible, put down the top since it was 64 degrees and sunny.

Below is a photo of the dock in old town with Julie on the right.

Below is where we ate The Fish Market in Old Town Alexandria.

Getting Together With Scott Radeztsky - Sun Microsystems Colleague

Longtime friend and Sun colleague, Dr. Scott Radeztsky, was in town this past week.  We got together to discuss old times at Sun Microsystems and got caught up in general.  It is also nice for me to ask Scott questions about physics - since that is what he got his Ph.D. in at University of Wisconsin.

We went to Clyde's in Ashburn to have a couple of beers and a nice dinner.  It's always great seeing the ole SUNWers...

Below is Scott and me enjoying a beer at the bar while our table is being setup.

1991 Floppy for Lotus 1-2-3 for Sun SPARC Systems

Cleaning out an old desk, I found this 1991 floppy.  Not sure how many of these are around :)

Winning the Application Platform

Note: This appeared in the IMTS Insider dated Feb 13, 2014
By: Dave Edstrom

James Carville, American political commentator, is known for coining the phrase, “It’s the economy, stupid,” when it was used in 1992 to drive home Bill Clinton’s primary attack point positioning him against President George H.W. Bush.

In the computer industry, there is a similar phrase to focus the big picture, “It’s the platform, stupid.” The Holy Grail is not about selling a lot of software; the Holy Grail is about selling lots of software by winning the platform, specifically the application platform.

There is a famous 2006 video of Steve Ballmer of Microsoft jumping around the stage screaming, “developers, developers, developers.” What Mr. Ballmer was really saying was that Microsoft couldn’t continue its hold on the WINTEL (Windows and Intel) platform without taking care of developers.

What are the key components in winning the application platform? The first key component is to win the architecture. This is best done by having an open architecture. The second key component is to have an outstanding developer platform. The third key component is applications: software applications and hardware expansion solutions.

The first question to answer is, “what is a platform?” Prior to Java, the programming language and computing platform created by Sun Microsystems, a platform was typically defined as the combination of hardware and software that developers would use to build their applications. The WINTEL (Windows and Intel) system was the most well-known platform. “Windows” referred both to the operating system (OS), the software development kit (SDK) – which are the libraries developers’ use – and the integrated development environment (IDE), which developers use to build their applications. During the 2000s, a popular platform was LAMP. LAMP stood for Linux, Apache HTTP Server (aka a web server), MySQL and PHP, Perl or Python. The LAMP stack was very popular because it included the necessary OS, database and programming tools to create a website that was open source and free to use. The application platform includes the set of software tools necessary to build the application and, many times, this includes a database. Android is the open source platform that was created by Google. iOS SDK is Apple’s software platform for their mobile devices.

Why is owning the platform important? Let’s turn on the time machine and go back to a Sun Microsystems conference room on July 1987 when the first ever SPARC (Scalable Processor ARChitecture) system and SPARC microprocessor was introduced. In May of 1987, I started at Sun Microsystems as a Systems Engineer (SE) working in a pre-sales environment. Basically, an SE was the technical arm for the sales rep that explained the technology, did presentations, ran benchmarks and basically did anything on the technical side to drive sales. The average sales rep was in their late 20s, making $350,000 in the Washington DC Sun office. Sun had the best development environment and the best bang for the buck for the workstation market. Sun introduced the Sun 4/260 and announced it would license the technology for both systems and microprocessors. Many Sun employees questioned the logic of this strategy. The overall question could be summarized, “We are killing it in the market. We introduced a system that is literally 2 ½ times faster than any other system that is out there. Why would we be possibly want to license this technology as opposed to keeping it for ourselves?”

The question would be answered by Scott G. McNealy, President, CEO and co-founder of Sun Microsystems, when he visited in person shortly after the global announcement of the new SPARC system. The question was asked of Scott, “Why license SPARC as opposed to just keeping it ourselves?” In the next half hour, we all received a Ph.D. in the economics of technology from the Harvard and Stanford graduate. Scott asked the question, “What were the two most successful computer architectures of all time?” He looked around the room for a few seconds and then answered his own question. Scott went on to explain that the two most successful computer architectures were the IBM mainframe and the IBM PC.

The IBM mainframe was so dominant in the computer industry that many companies felt the only way to make money was not to compete with the industry giant, but to create boards that would be compatible or plug into IBM’s mainframe computers. The term Plug-Compatible Mainframe (PC-M) was created. Scott went on to explain the IBM mainframe market share was above 80 percent. IBM’s mainframe architecture was clearly dominant.

At the other end of the spectrum was the IBM PC. IBM felt pressure in the late 1970s and early 1980s to respond to the quickly growing market that was led by companies like Apple, with the Apple II, Radio Shack, with the TRS-80, and the Commodore PET. Feeling the time pressure, IBM used off-the-shelf parts for the hardware and leased DOS from Microsoft. This combination of off-the-shelf hardware and a leased operating system allowed for the creation of the PC compatible market. These PC compatible systems were called PC clones or IBM clones. The IBM PC architecture was the dominant architecture.

Scott then brought the conversation back to economics and asked the question, “How expensive would it be for Wang, Data General or any of the other proprietary architecture companies to completely change their architecture?” The rhetorical question drove home the point that changing your architecture would be an extremely expensive proposition and could put a company completely out of business. The reasons it is so expensive to completely change the architecture is that customers have applications that they have purchased and written. What do they do with those applications? This could be, and typically is, a nightmare for companies.

By licensing SPARC at both a system and microprocessor level, Sun was attempting to establish an architecture that would be the new platform for high-end workstations and servers. Sun had a world-class developer program. By building the systems on an industry standard VME bus, Sun made it easy for hardware developers to use the new SPARC systems.

Scott McNealy was able to educate all of us by first explaining the logic from an economic perspective. The technology perspective was important, but it was second to understanding the economics of a platform. It was a lesson that none of us would ever forget. At your company, are you simply creating products or a platform? Even if you are not creating a platform, this is a conversation that you should be having, because your competition is not sitting still. Remember, it’s all about winning the platform.

Dave McPhail - President and CEO of Memex Automation on BNN

This is an excellent interview of Dave McPhail - President and CEO of Memex Automation on BNN.

Sun Microsystems and Microsoft OpenOffice Patent Meeting

I saw this thread on patents at EE Times and thought this is a great defense use of patents.   This EE Times thread referenced the original article at Softpedia.

This is a great Sun Microsystems versus Microsoft story for all of us old SUNWers :)

[as told by Jonathan Ian Schwartz, then CEO of Sun]

"As we sat down in our Menlo Park conference room, Bill [Gates] skipped the small talk, and went straight to the point, 'Microsoft owns the office productivity market, and our patents read all over OpenOffice.  We're happy to get you under license.' That was code for 'We'll go away if you pay us a royalty for every download' – the digital version of a protection racket."

Sun Microsystems did not ink a patent covenant agreement with Microsoft.

[Schwartz' reply to Gates:] "'We've looked at .NET, and you're trampling all over a huge number of Java patents. So what will you pay us for every copy of Windows?'  ...it was a short meeting."

Stanley "Tat" Thompson Snowstorm in Ashburn, VA --- Photon and Nero in the Snow

My late Uncle Stanley "Tat" Thompson of Zumbrota, Minnesota used to have a great line for the question that people invariably ask during this type of snowstorm, which is, "how's the weather where you're at?"  Tat's answer was usually, "clear and still".   The other person would say, "I thought you were getting hammered with snow?"  Then Tat would say, "Clear and still - snow clear up to your a$$ and still coming."

Below is a movie of our dogs Photon and Nero in the snow that is 16" and more coming.  We could end up with 2 feet of snow when it is all said and done tonight. This was Nero's first time in this type of deep snow.

Sun Microsystems Reunion

• Host:
  Butler, Chabrier, Hauge, Shoemaker
• no phone

• When:
  Saturday, May 24 from 5:30 PM to 10:30 PM
• Where:
  TBD -- someplace in CA Bay Area I would bet
   
   
  Here is the link to the evite.

2014 Car Show in DC With John Meyer and Mike Geldner

John Meyer and I met Mike Geldner at the DC Convention Center for the 2014 Automobile Show.  After that, Mr. Geldner was kind enough to invite us to his home on the Potomac for a fantastic dinner.  Below is (left to right) me, John and Mike with the Corvette Stingray (C7) behind us.  We are all Corvette owners.

Below is a video I took of the Corvette Stingray.

Above is the Stingray Coupe and below is the convertible version.

Below is an interesting concept car - a single seater

Below is a video of all the Mustangs from 1964 on that they had at the Auto Show:

Above is the new Mustang and below are a couple photos of the famous Shelby Cobra.

The engine in the impressive Audi S8 is below

Below is the famous 1964 Daytona Cobra Coupe

Great December 2013 Visit With Memex Automation

I had a great visit with Memex Automation in December.  I did not talk about this or post anything until after we had proceeded with (and most importantly made public) that I would become the Chief Technology Officer for Memex Automation in an ownership position.

It was a fantastic three days thanks to the tremendous hospitality of Dave McPhail and John Rattray. I had the privilege of spending some time at the office as well.  Memex Automation is a great team and it is a true honor to be part of the Memex team.

Below is John on the left with the hat and Dave on the right with me in the middle.  They rented a big limo for my final night in Toronto.

Above is the skyline of Toronto and below are photos from the Great One's bar.

Yes, it snowed the whole time and yes it was somewhat cold :)

Happy Birthday Slim!

Awhile back we celebrated my father's (aka Slim) birthday.  My sister and I rented a Hummer limo, Tim and Michael came back from college and we all went out for a very nice night on the town.

Above is me, Tim, Julie and Michael in front of the big black Hummer limo.

Below is my parents in the limo.

HUGE Congratulations to Shannon Sweatman of SMT!

When I think of thought leaders in manufacturing, I think of Shannon Sweatman of Southern Manufacturing Technologies.

Below is an announcement from the Manufacturing Instititute:

"The Manufacturing Institute announced they will award 160 Honorees with the Women in Manufacturing STEP (Science, Technology, Engineering and Production) Award. The STEP Awards honor women who have demonstrated excellence and leadership in their careers and represent all levels of the manufacturing industry, from the factory-floor to the C-suite.

On February 6, The Manufacturing Institute will recognize these Honorees from over 110 companies at the STEP Awards in Washington, D.C. The STEP Awards program will highlight each Honoree’s story, including their leadership and accomplishments in manufacturing. By telling the real stories of these women, we will inspire the next generation of talent to pursue careers in the industry and support current female talent within the manufacturing industry."



   Congratulations Shannon! 

Dave Edstrom Joins Memex Automation as Chief Technology Officer and Purchases Equity Interest

This press release went out today at 4:01pm eastern today.  I highlighted some of the points below.  

I have to say, the last time I was this excited was when I went to work for Sun Microsystems in early 1987.  Please see the press release below on joining the incredible folks at Memex Automation.  

It was certainly nice to have this carried in the Wall Street Journal on this announcement.

01/30/14 -- Astrix Networks Inc., operating as Memex Automation ("Astrix" or the "Company") (TSX VENTURE: OEE), is pleased to announce that Dave Edstrom, recently past President and Chairman of the Board of the MTConnect Institute, has purchased an equity interest in the Company and has joined the senior management team as Chief Technology Officer.

Edstrom brings decades of software experience to Memex Automation and has been in a number of technology and leadership roles for a range of companies. Prior to his new role, he served for three and a half years as President and Chairman of the Board of the MTConnect Institute, where he was instrumental in the creation of the MTConnect standard.

In October 2006, while working at Sun Microsystems, Edstrom and Dr. David Patterson of the University of California at Berkeley (UCB), laid out the MTConnect vision at AMT -- The Association For Manufacturing Technology's Annual Meeting. Edstrom is also the author of the book "MTConnect: To Measure Is To Know" as well as a prolific writer of white papers, technical and business articles. Edstrom worked for Sun Microsystems for 23 years in a variety of leadership positions, including as Chief Technologist for Global Software, when he left to start his own company in 2010. Prior to Sun Microsystems, Edstrom held a number of positions including assembly language programmer, systems engineer, Principal Engineer, as well as in computer hardware and software sales. His career includes working with a broad range of software and hardware technologies for commercial and government markets with both direct sales and partners, and he retains his title of CEO/CTO at Virtual Photons Electrons, LLC., his consulting firm.

The Company is pleased to announce it has closed the first tranche of the private placement previously announced on January 15, 2014. Upon joining Memex Automation, Edstrom has purchased 1,114,500 units at a price of $0.14 each. Each unit is comprised of one common share in the capital of the Company (a "Common Share") and one warrant (a "Warrant"). Each Warrant entitles Mr. Edstrom to purchase one Common Share at a price of $0.145 per share at any time prior to 4:00 p.m. (Ontario time) on January 30, 2016. The securities are subject to a hold period, which will expire on May 31, 2014. The closing is subject to receipt of final approval from the TSX Venture Exchange.

Edstrom stated, "I have had the privilege of working with Memex Automation on a variety of efforts when I was the President and Chairman of the MTConnect Institute. I am absolutely convinced that this company is positioned to become the global leader in its vertical, helping manufacturers maximize utilization and gain productivity. I am thrilled to be joining the Memex Automation team as the Chief Technology Officer in an ownership position to drive technology, create new opportunities, and help it become a global power in manufacturing solutions."

 "I'm delighted Dave has joined our ownership and leadership team, as it enables him to continue to lead the global manufacturing sector out of the 20th Century and into the 21st Century with an MTConnect-based universal machine to machine (M2M) productivity solution," said Memex Automation's President & CEO, David McPhail. "This should signal to manufacturers globally that Memex Automation is doing things right -- that using MERLIN, our flagship product, they can connect their plants' points of production to their business intelligence tools in real-time while increasing production and income from operations by 10% or more."

About MERLIN:

MERLIN translates all protocols such as Fanuc Focas, OPC and MTConnect, an XML-based, open source, royalty free protocol into information that management, engineering and maintenance teams use to: Measure OEE in real-time, providing an objective voice of process from each point of production, fabrication and assembly Bucket "idle time" to its root cause and converts some of it back into production timeCapture and define quality issues by process step to define poor quality root causesDefine machining parameters, tolerances, conditions and production flow on a SKU basisOptimize machine states and conditions, to increase spindle time and asset utilizationIncrease production and thereby increase income from operations

About the company 

Operating under the trade name Memex Automation, Astrix Networks Inc. (TSX VENTURE: OEE) is the leader of the measurement of Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE). OEE is the measurement of plant-wide capacity utilization in real-time. MERLIN (Manufacturing Enterprise Real-time Lean Information Network) generates OEE enterprise-wide, machine by machine. Frost & Sullivan awarded MERLIN its 2013 Technology Innovation Leadership Award. Microsoft picked MERLIN to be its mid-market ERP machine connectivity solution. Mazak, North America's largest original equipment manufacturer of machine tools, purchased MERLIN to manage its plant and now offer it on their price list.

"Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release." Add to Digg Bookmark with del.icio.us Add to Newsvine For more information, please contact: Sales: John Rattray Vice-President Sales 905-635-0590 Email Contact Investors: Thomas Smeenk VP Business Development 905-536-3138 Email Contact Media: Leanne Rattray Marketing 905-635-1540 ext. 103 Email Contact Source: Memex Automation

Four Year Anniversary of Oracle Buying Sun Microsytems

Four years ago today was when Oracle officially purchased and took over Sun Microsystems.

While things worked out great for me and many others that received packages from Oracle, the same cannot be said for all previous Sun employees who went to Oracle. 

Let's see what the god of Java, James Gosling, thinks four years later in the NetworkWorld article where James Gosling looks back at the Mixed Fate of Sun Tech.

I thought this was interesting in the above NetworkWorld article by James on his baby Java:

"Gosling gives Oracle a B+ grade for its handling of Java: “They've really done surprisingly well with Java except for the ‘growing pains’ in figuring out how to deal with security issues.”

Analyst Michael Azoff, of Ovum, sees Java as being a healthy state of development despite client-side issues. “Oracle is investing in Java, and the upcoming generation releases (SE 8 and 9) involve significant re-architecting to evolve the language and platform.”

Unfortunately, James (and I would strongly agree) does not feel the same way about Solaris:

"Gosling sees Solaris as “totally dead” and says he converted his Solaris systems to Linux. “The license fees for Solaris are so high that it's crazy to think of trying to use it and the hardware offerings from Oracle make no sense.”  

Happy 30th Birthday Macintosh!

Today is the 30th birthday of the introduction of Apple's Macintosh.

These are the first words that the Mac spoke when the bag came off by Steve Jobs:

“Hello, I’m Macintosh. It sure is great to get out of that bag. Unaccustomed as I am to public speaking, I’d like to share with you a maxim I thought of the first time I met an IBM mainframe: Never trust a computer you  cannot lift..”

Below is the famous 1984 commercial shown at the Super Bowl:


Below is Apple's 30th anniversary video:

 Here is a nice article at Forbes on the anniversary by Connie Guglielmo, Forbes Staff 

As Ms. Guglielmo states in the article when she quotes Steve Jobs on state for the announcement:

“IBM wants it all and is aiming its guns on its last obstacle to industry control: Apple. Will Big Blue dominate the entire computer industry? The entire information age? Was George Orwell right about 1984?”

From the same article, a quote from Steve Jobs famous Standford commencement address is shared:

“Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn’t have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can’t capture, and I found it fascinating. None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it’s likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.”

—  Steve Jobs, in a commencement speech at Stanford University, June 12, 2005
 

Woz on the Jobs Movie

I thought this was a very interesting seven minute interview of Steve Wozniak on the Steve Jobs movie.

Ashburn, VA - The Internet Ends HERE

When we are driving around Ashburn with friends, I like to point to all the Data Centers and specifically to the Data Center outside our neighborhood, The Regency, and say, "The Internet Ends Here".

Why can I make this statement?  An article in the Loudoun Times titled, "As data and communications head to Loudoun, a global tech hub emerges" makes this point very clearly (bold print and large print is my emphasis):

"Buddy Rizer, the county's director of economic development, pitches four game-changing assets:

-A collection of of more than 40 expansive data centers operated by the likes of Facebook, Microsoft and Amazon.

-An Internet infrastructure that carries as much as 70 percent of the world's Internet traffic.

-A tech-savvy, highly educated populace where 20 percent of the workers are specialists in data and communications.

-The emergence of Loudoun County as a technology epicenter, connected to the world by Dulles Airport and extended regionally by the planned Metro extension."

Let's say that one more time for emphasis:   "An Internet infrastructure that carries as much as 70 percent of the world's Internet traffic".  That is truly amazing!