This year’s Honeywell User Group Americas provided a glimpse into the Honeywell Process Solutions of the future, complete with new management, much of it from the UOP side of the business. With new president Norm Gilsdorf at the helm, Honeywell has announced its One Honeywell strategy. This will leverage other Honeywell businesses, such as security, UOP, and combustion control, with the process solutions business to address key business challenges for customers, such as sustainability, regulatory compliance, and safety.

Cisco’s announcement yesterday of its Smart Connected Buildings initiative is a watershed event. What Cisco is releasing is actually a standards-based building SCADA system that integrates and adds intelligence to existing building systems. Most of the Smart Grid commentariat has missed this point entirely. Cisco is enabling its channel partners and customers to serve as energy system integrators. It is also a hint about the approach Cisco may take for enabling the future Smart Grid and eventually the smart home.