One current underground drumbeat has GE acquiring somebody in the $500M to $1B range. This can only be the hardware parts of Invensys - Foxboro, Triconex, Eurotherm.

After just selling off APV (an unrelated orphan) to SPX for £250M Invensys may be positioning itself as a pure software & services play. Of course, in the meantime, it still has to dispose of its other problem child - the Controls Division.

Meanwhile, Foxboro is in turmoil after new CEO Paulett Eberhart decided to move the IPS HQ to Dallas, Texas. Heck, popular IPS President Mike Caliel should have considered this as an alternative; he was commuting to his home in Dallas, before he exited to run his own show.

With the latest Dallas move, many long-term Foxboro people were exited, including most of MarCom. But, perhaps most painful was the exit of popular Ken Brown, long-time Foxboro stalwart and Acting President. Many felt that he was the obvious choice when the surprise appointment of outsider Eberhart was announced.

Meanwhile, Wonderware president Mike Bradley was also exited. On receiving the instant bush-telegraph announcement via the JimPinto.com weblog, I spoke with Mike, who handled the whole thing with great professionalism. He lauded his replacement, Sudipta Bhattacharya, who had just recently joined (senior VP of SAP) reporting to Mike, who hired him.

General impressions (at Wonderware and outside the company) are that Sudipta is a good man. It remains to be seen how he gets on with CEO Ulf Henrikkson, to whom he reports directly - not via IPS President Paulett Eberhart.

Wonderware's InTouch 10.0 and System Platform 3.0 were recently described by Mike Bradley as "the most important announcements in Wonderware's 20 year history". In the word of one industry guru: "It would be easier to sell InTouch and InFusion if they didn't have to drag around Foxboro".

Stay tuned....

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