Back on BSNL broadband

End to this long silence. I am back on BSNL braodband at home (Bangalore)
Here goes connection quality.


And to my suprise BSNL gave me a wireless modem WA3002G4. Pretty decent one.
Taking power availability here, I may need to go for a small battery till I decide on Inverter.
Feeling to be connected after long time.

Resuming .....

I chaged my job and relocated to Bangalore. Just settled down and resuming my normal life.

Emerson Announces Third Quarter 2009 Results

Source

• Sales of $5.1B, flat with second quarter 2009
• Earnings per share of $0.51
• Free Cash Flow of $800M, Up 19% from third quarter 2008;
  Operating Cash Flow of $916M, Up 11%
• Expects full year earnings per share $2.20 to $2.30

ST. LOUIS, August 4, 2009 – Emerson (NYSE: EMR) announced net sales for the third quarter ended June 30, 2009 of $5.1 billion, a decrease of 22 percent compared with $6.6 billion for the same period last year.  Underlying sales in the quarter declined 19 percent, which excludes a 4 percent unfavorable impact from currency exchange rates and a 1 percent positive impact from acquisitions.  On a sequential basis, sales in the third quarter 2009 were essentially flat with the second quarter, an encouraging sign of stabilization, but below what we had expected a few months ago.

Fiscal Year 2009 Outlook
The bottom of the global economic recession is forming and we expect to see the bottom in the global GFI (gross fixed investment) decline in our fourth fiscal quarter, but we do not expect to see any significant recovery until late 2010.  This will be discussed during our conference call later today.  Based on results for the first three quarters of fiscal 2009 and current order trends, Emerson expects full year earnings per share in the range of $2.20-$2.30.  Underlying sales are expected to decline 12 to 13 percent from 2008 levels, which excludes an estimated 4 percent unfavorable impact from currency translation and a 1 percent favorable impact from completed acquisitions resulting in a net sales decline in the range of 15 to 16 percent to $20.8 to $21.1 billion.  Fiscal 2009 operating cash flow is targeted to be $3 billion and the free cash flow target is $2.4 to $2.6 billion.  We will continue to reduce our global inventory until the global recovery is clearly happening, early in calendar year 2010.  The company expects to incur approximately $280 to $300 million of restructuring expense in fiscal 2009.

Siemens Earnings Release Q3 2009

Source

Financial highlights:

· Siemens’ strong order backlog softened the impact of the global recession on revenue and profit. Backlog for the Sectors totaled €84.3 billion.

· Third-quarter revenue of €18.348 billion was 4% lower than in the prior-year quarter.

· Orders of €17.160 billion were well below the prior-year level, due in part to a high basis of comparison that included exceptionally large orders at Mobility. The book-to-bill ratio was 0.94.

· Lower revenue held back Total Sectors profit at €1.667 billion, despite a 40% increase in Sector profit in Energy.

· Net income was €1.317 billion, an increase from the second quarter but a decline compared to the strong third quarter of fiscal 2008.

· Free cash flow declined due in part to substantial outflows related to previously reported project reviews and initiatives to safeguard profitability.

MTOM vs. Streaming vs. Compression – Large attachments over WCF

Source

MTOM is related to Bandwidth while Streaming is related to Buffering.

Compression – WCF’s extensible channel architecture allows us to easily plug-in a compression channel. So, how about not using MTOM or binary, and just applying compression on what we are about to transfer? First compression doesn’t come for free, it costs a lot in terms of CPU. You need to weigh the CPU cost of compression / decompression vs. Latency cost (i.e. is bandwidth a bottleneck?). For Binary encoding, I think it doesn’t make sense (I would encourage you to do your own test, but it didn’t show me much difference), for MTOM encoding I would prefer sending an already offline compressed attachment (i.e. a compressed .bmp instead of .bmp) & for Text encoding, yes, it may make sense. Say, you want to send 10000 customers (though you shouldn’t be doing that) and you need to use Text for interoperability reasons. I recommend to use compression by all means for such scenarios.

Schneider-Electric Q2, 2009 results

Source

Q2 SALES CONTINUED TO BE IMPACTED BY GLOBALLY WEAK MARKET CONDITIONS

Second quarter 2009 sales reached €3,933 million, down 15.1% on a current structure and exchange rate basis. Organic growth was -19.7%.

Following is sector wise percentage.

Electrical Distribution -16.0%

Automation & Control -27.6%

Critical Power & Cooling -17.6%

Total -19.7%

 

Most affected in the quarter was Schneider’s Automation & Control division, 24% off the prior-year period.

Rockwell Results

Source

Rockwell Automation Reports Third Quarter 2009 Results

• Revenue down 31 percent compared to the third quarter of fiscal 2008, down 4 percent sequentially
• Diluted EPS of $0.23
• Company reaffirms fiscal 2009 EPS guidance of $1.40 - $1.70

Segment wise

Architecture & Software

• Sales decreased 36% YOY, 5% of decrease due to currency translation
• Sales increased 2% sequentially

Control Products & Solutions

• Sales decreased 28% YOY, 5% of decrease due to currency translation, partially offset by 1% of growth from acquisitions
• Sales decreased 8% sequentially

Honeywell 2Q Profit Down 38%

Source

Chairman and Chief Executive Dave Cote on Monday called the company's performance good in a tough environment, saying it had several long-term contract wins and strong cash flow. "Economic conditions, however, remain challenging and we are not planning for any recovery in 2009," he added.

Sales for its automation and control systems segment fell 17% as profits declined 11% and margins rose to 11.5% from 10.8% on productivity improvements.

ABB Q2, 2009 Results

Source: Revenues stable as markets continue to challenge, cost take-out supports margins

• Revenues of $7.9 billion on continued successful execution of the order backlog
• $1 billion EBIT after ca. $120 million restructuring-related costs – EBIT margin at 13.2%
• Orders down 27% in local currencies vs record Q2 in 2008 – base orders 25% lower
• Cash from operations above $1 billion, net income at $675 million

as % of revenues	Q2 09	Q2 08
Power Products	19.50%	19.40%
Power Systems	7.60%	7.10%
Automation Products	14.90%	19.60%
Process Automation	9.30%	11.80%
Robotics	-21.80%	7.00%

 

Net cash at the end of the second quarter was $5.7 billion compared to $4.8 billion at the end of the previous quarter. Cash flow from operations amounted to $1.1 billion, slightly higher than the second quarter of 2008

 

Demand in ABB’s industrial end markets depends to a large extent on GDP growth and capital spending, together with commodity prices. Customers’ need to steadily improve efficiency and productivity to meet increasing competition also drives orders, along with demand in construction and in general industry.

Therefore, management’s priority for 2009 remains to ensure that the company has the flexibility to respond quickly to changing market conditions, taking advantage of its global footprint, strong balance sheet and leading technologies to improve its cost competitiveness while simultaneously tapping further opportunities for profitable growth.

ABB also confirms its previously published targets for the period 2007 to 2011, with the exception of the Robotics division, which is facing an unprecedented market downturn and requires further restructuring.

Invensys Outlook and Q1,2009 Performance

Source

Compared with the corresponding period last year, Group order intake in the first quarter of the financial year was up 17% at actual exchange rates and was flat at constant exchange rates.

In our new Invensys Operations Management (IOM) division, the integration of our industrial automation businesses is proceeding well and we have appointed Sudipta Bhattacharya, formerly President of Wonderware, to lead the division. The pipeline of order prospects in projects and solutions remains strong though we are continuing to experience reduced volumes in the short-cycle products business, which will have an impact upon first half performance. However we expect the second half to benefit from our large order pipeline, the IOM integration and the increasing effects of cost reduction initiatives.

Invensys Rail continues to perform well in our core markets and our pipeline of order prospects in export markets remains strong. In addition, we are focussed upon pursuing the opportunities in countries implementing significant rail infrastructure stimulus packages.

Invensys Controls has seen some stabilisation in demand in North America in recent weeks and is experiencing declines within its European operations. Overall we continue to expect that the division will be profitable for the year with positive cash flow.

Financial Position
At 30 June 2009, the Group had net cash and deposits of £277 million, a £32 million reduction in the quarter, with good operating cash conversion of around 100% offset by the effect of currency translation and the payment of non-operating items including restructuring, taxation and part of the Baan minority

ARC's Sixth India Forum

http://www.arcweb.com/Events/Pages/Hyderabad09.aspx#register

Winning Strategies and Best Practices for Process Industries
Driving Performance During Economic Downturn

July 23-25, 2009 - Hyderabad, India

ABB FlexPicker Robots

One of the fascinating videos of ABB's FlexPicker

Rockwell - Free Starter Programming Software for MicroLogix 1000 and 1100

Rockwell is offering MicroLogix free of charge. Using MicroLogix users can create, modify and monitor application programs for Allen-Bradley MicroLogix controllers.

http://www.ab.com/programmablecontrol/plc/micrologix/downloads.html

Cognizant in alliance with Invensys

Cognizant, a leading technology, consulting and business process outsourcing services provider, has entered into a strategic global product research and development alliance with Invensys Operations Management (IOM), a global provider of technology systems, solutions and consulting services in the process and manufacturing space.

Being an employee of Invensys, I am present personally in this townhall. And I can say that mood was quite grim in the beginning, but slowly my colleagues started facing reality. This is the walk of life. Sometimes Business heads take decision and then ask techies to support their vision and mission. I don’t have any viewpoint here to comment about such approach.

Personally I believe in taking confidence of every stakeholder before venturing anything of this nature. My definition of stakeholder is not limited to CEO’s and top level leaders, rather I go with each and every one till last possible lead in the chain.

I would compare it with land acquisition activity by governments. Land owners doesn’t stand a chance but accept the little bit more monetary benefit. Now it is up to Cognizant to keep this pool of talented resources motivated and provide them a vision ahead.

Automation controller market growth will resume in 2010

As published in automation world,  based on ARC report, automation controller market is expected to have growth in 2010.

http://www.automationworld.com/news-5761

Highlights

a) PLC market is expected to contract in 2009 but is expected to increase in 2010

b) Growth is expected in building automation business as commercial, industrial, and residential building projects resume

c) Once China and India resume their gross domestic product (GDP) growth, it will create demand for a broad range of products

d) Services continue to be the fastest-growing segment of the overall DCS market.

e) After market services segment is much greater than that of project services

f) Main Automation Contractor (MAC) is expected to take full responsibility for all the automation related aspects of a project

g) Demand has been strong for outsourced maintenance and performance-related services such as loop monitoring

It is 11 years now

As on today my professional career completed 11 years. Longest vacation I ever had was for 11 days.

Somehow I am feeling like that is not enough to reset the garbage that I collected. I wish giving myself a break for couple of months to do something that is close to heart.

I just want to kick start my Bullet and hit roads till I reach a mountain peak where I can live at least a day without having a connection to anything in this world.

We will do original designs locally

Honeywell’s worldwide chairman and CEO David M Cote was in Bangalore recently to inaugurate the firm’s second research facility. The head honcho spoke about why Honeywell is bullish on India, research areas it is focusing on …

Honeywell Introduces Improved Ballistic Material

Source: Honeywell Introduces Improved Ballistic Material for Military, Police Vests and Soft Armor Applications

I guess India is potential market for this business. Typical armor that our police and military personnel use weighs almost 12 KGs. HAL with its expertise in composite materials could attempt to make a better solutions. Sometime back I heard from a senior executive of Bangalore based aerospace company about their interest in this area. In my opinion application of technology for life saving needs like this is a unique opportunity.

ABB’s 3D animation solutions for Azipod at Nor-Shipping

Source : ABB in 3D at Nor-Shipping

ABB’s 3D animation solution for its 1 billion order revenue offering (Azipod) is an attraction at Nor-shipping.

ABB is the world leader in electric propulsion, and offers a full range of systems, from variable speed electric machinery for shaftline propulsion and mechanical thusters to the unique family of Azipod podded propulsion systems.

An extensive development project within ABB Marine was established in 2007 with the objective of developing a next generation, further enhanced Azipod® propulsion unit family.

The next generation Azipod is a centerpiece of ABB's world famous electric propulsion system for ships, which usually consists of an Azipod, a frequency converter and a power supply.

Azipod units increase fuel efficiency by up to 15 percent in vessels using an efficient design that delivers enhanced maneuverability in harbors and confined areas.

Reduced Life Cycle Costs through Improved Operational Efficiency,Availability and Maintainability

Is twitter an alternative for opinion polls?

Looking at http://fixoutlook.org/, I feel it is as another facet of twitter as a tool for collecting opinion poll. Regular radio buttons, checkboxes wont allow you to express your view. They force you to choose from what is asked for. I guess twitter approach is giving better handle to express the opinions. Any idea how to parse live twitter updates in public timeline?