This has been a particularly busy February and March for our industry. Anto Budiardjo's third BuilConn has gained significant momentum. This is because the integrated open systems connected to the enterprise have become the pattern to follow for the building automation industry. This year, Anto and Clasma, Inc. have captured the attention and presenting power of the industry's who's-who list and put together a particularly informative show. I have extracted some of the highlights from some of the key presenters in their interviews published in the February issue of AutomatedBuildings.com (www.automatedbuildings.com/news/jan05/interviews0701.htm).

Sinclair: "You seem to have a lot of people driving BuilConn this year."

Budiardjo: "We are indeed fortunate that a significant number of key industry names have stepped up to lead the numerous tracks happening at BuilConn in Dallas. It is a reflection of the gathering momentum of this convergence subject in buildings.

What Are All These People Saying?

Ron Zimmer,president and CEO of CABA, on Trends@BuilConn: "The issues to be covered include changes in CSI Master Spec, LEED™, CLA initiatives, M2M device networking, and how the information technology industry works."

Anno Scholten, CTO of Plexus Technology Inc., on Development@BuilConn: "The development track at BuilConn is designed for development engineers and product designers that are interested in the latest technologies being applied to building automation systems: XML/Web services and wireless."

Barry Hasser, executive director of LONMARK® International, on LonWorks@BuilConn: "We will discuss the key trends driving open systems and provide key perspectives on how to make open systems a common element of your business, whether you are an enduser, contractor, specifier, or supplier."

Jim Lee, president and CEO of Cimetrics Inc., on BACnet@BuilConn: "The track will include a number of key BACnet experts to talk about the status, plans and implementation of BACnet."

Toby Considine, oBix chairman, on oBix@BuilConn: "It is an exciting time, with the pieces falling into place, and the role of oBIX becoming apparent to a larger audience. Now we have to focus on the stylistic issues of XML, of making oBIX look like what the enterprise is looking for, and we need the eyes of the entire controls industry to look on what we have, and to submit suggestions as to how to make it better."

John Petze, president and CEO of Tridium, Inc., on Niagara@BuilConn: "A session that will help systems integrators, consulting engineers, and facility owners and managers understand Niagara."

Paul Ehrlich of the Building Intelligence Group, on Enterprise@BuilConn: "The concept of enterprise integration is that groups of buildings can now be centrally managed, and also that we can connect building systems to business systems."

Leighton Wolffe, director of the Energy Partner Program for WebGen Systems, on OpenSystems@BuilConn: "What are the benefits and business value of being able to integrate an ‘open' building automation system onto a standard IT platform and into the business management systems in place at virtually every Fortune 1000 company today?"

John Huston, P.E., with TENG & Associates, Inc./TENG Solutions, on FM@BuilConn: "The FM@BuilConn track enables attendees to learn from those who have already experienced success applying technology to facility management."

Jim Young, founder and producer of Realcomm, on Owners@BuilConn: "The technology community needs to spend the first hour of every new relationship listening to what the client does and what are their business drivers, their problems that maybe technology can solve."

Glen Allmendinger, president of Harbor Research, Inc., on M2M@BuilConn: "The move to M2M is happening, and the pace of adoption is accelerating. It is not only possible, it is here."

Jack Mc Gowan, president of Energy Control Inc., on Energy@BuilConn: "BuilConn participants will learn how to position themselves for the opportunity to deliver technology that enables a more effective United Stats electric system and integrates building consumption on a completely new level."

On The Case

For my part, CaseStudies@BuilConn is all about peoples' success planning and implementing the new reality.

The one thing that glues all of these subjects together is the new player in buildings: the enterprise. Basically, because of all of the connectivity technologies, buildings can now be a real-time player in the enterprise systems that are driving most organizations today. For years now, the enterprise has been connected to Finance, Human Resources, the supply chain, CRM as well as R&D, and now facilities are part of that picture. ES