News | August 17, 2000

Schneider Electric's Automation Business and Control.com partner to deliver on-line services

Collaboration expected to open automation to the web economy.

Schneider Electric's Automation Business (SEAB; North Andover, MA) and Control.com (Hopkinton, MA) announced a web services based partnership to focus on a technical and marketing collaboration in online community services. Over the next two years, this partnership seeks to build a strong online community that will become the basis for truly open control in the future. Schneider's Automation Business has agreed to acquire a 19 percent stake in Control.com

The first users were members of the automation forum The List, or "A-List," originated by Ken Crater, president of Control.com. This forum is now an integral web enabled function of the Control.com site.

Control.com is driving the creation of an open source PLC to run under the Linux operating system, while Schneider Electric's Transparent Factory open automation architecture delivers a suite of web-enabled products that simplifies enterprise-wide information sharing.

Edited by Jerry R. Borland, P.E.
Managing Editor, EC Online