Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Siemens Industry to take over RuggedCom

The Siemens division Industry (not Energy!) announced yesterday (2012-01-30) that they agreed with RuggedCom to acquire Canadian network supplier RuggedCom Inc. The other day it was reported that Belden was trying to take over RuggedCom.

Click HERE for the Siemens press release from 2012-01-30.

It is quite interesting to see how long it took to make Ethernet an enjoyable solution:

Excerpt from the press release: “Siemens’ portfolio of industrial Ethernet networking components is enjoying above-average growth rates compared to the competition. Until now, the main emphasis of Siemens’ installed base in this segment has been in Europe. “RuggedCom’s portfolio would be an ideal addition to our range of industrial Ethernet communication products, improving our industrial-quality router and switch offering. In addition, the acquisition would improve our footprint in the North America and the Asia-Pacific region,” said Anton S. Huber, CEO of the Siemens Industry Automation Division. Huber also indicated that all of RuggedCom’s and Siemens’ product lines would be developed further in the next few years.”

What is meant by “competition” in the statement “industrial Ethernet networking components is enjoying above-average growth rates compared to the competition”? Is Ethernet competing with the “Profi”- and many other Fieldbusses … Profibus and ProfiNet … FF fieldbus …?

For me this deal indicates that the native Ethernet solution as provided by RuggedCom and used in IEC 61850 is the most “enjoyable” and successful network solution in the next 20 years or so! RuggedCom is (as Belden/Hirschmann) quite active in the IEC 61850 standardization.

When I worked for Siemens Industry in the early 90s, I recommended to use native Ethernet instead of fieldbusses … now we write 2012 – 20 years later.

Click HERE for the paper “Bridging MAP to Ethernet” [PDF, 720 KB, 1991]

Click HERE for the paper “Fieldbus standardization: Another way to go” [PDF, 720 KB, 1991].

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