Microsoft has actually been interested in, and has been sponsoring events in the Computer Integrated Manufacturing space for years.
When I was with the Global HMI Sub-Committee in OMAC (Open Modular Architecture Controls group), Microsoft had a MUG (Microsoft User Group). We are talking over 10 years ago, before OMAC joined ISA and when it was under the ARC people's direction. Back then, I was running an upstart company after I had coined a new name that quickly became a category, namely "e-Manufacturing". After writing the first widely accepted XML Schema with Dr. Stephen Lane-Smith, I was happy that it has been used in the last few years and added to by MTConnect (see MTConnect.org) with sponsorship from the American Machine Tool Association. I now am involved with MTConnect on their Technical Advisory Board.
Our dream of barrier-free connectivity is now coming to pass and Microsoft will be a player in this. Our software systems over the years have relied heavily on Microsoft products - at times this was trying, but at least a standard could be leveraged for all. Today our goal is to connect the millions of isolated machine tools and provide a cloud of "machine2machine" inter-connectivity and synergy. We look at the plant as one machine now, and are in some ways living up to the 1998 press in Modern Machine Shop we got under the Memex name as the suppliers of the "shop floor nervous system".
I want to leave with a thought - back in the DotCom days (yes we were one of them) I explained to people that wondered about this connectivity thing that what we were talking about was the equivalent of clicking buy on the Net and the machine would almost instantly start making the product you needed. Zero waste - made to order - ultra velocity of data flow and yet in your hands quickly. We want to leverage IT on the factory floor and with my team of over a dozen companies and with technology we have today, I do not see why we cannot have this "click-buy-make-ship" dream.
