Invensys Process Systems (IPS) has been pretty unstable over the past couple of years. It's the largest part of Invensys, and the other segment, Invensys Rail, is for sale. The next fiscal year ends March 31, 2010. They can blame everything on the economy for another year or so, but after that...

After respected former IPS CEO Mike Caliel departed for greener pastures, Invensys CEO Ulf Henriksson passed over popular Foxboro acting-CEO Ken Brown and appointed Paulett Eberhart (ex-EDC) who brought in a bunch of old cronies.

Then, (this is still hard to believe) Paulett moved IPS HQ from Foxboro, MA. to Plano, Texas, seemingly to suit her own private agenda. Nobody can explain the move, and the real cost of the damage has yet to be tallied. Paulett was subsequently fired by Ulf without any explanation. This is still a subject that Ulf does not even attempt to rationalize. Frankly, if I was on the board, I'd fire Ulf.

Post-Paulett, Ulf made Wonderware CEO Sudipta Bhattacharya the IPS CEO. Soon, Sudipta came up with an obtuse "strategy" - IPS would be called IOM (Invensys Operations Management). This changed the relationship with Wonderware (formerly seen as the IPS crown-jewels) and included faltering hardware manufacturer Eurotherm in the mix. They should have sold off Eurotherm; but apparently no one wanted to buy.

What's the IOM strategy? Knowledgeable industry pundits like Andrew Bond (Automation Insider) and editors Gary Mintchell and Walt Boyes have tried to explain it (weblinks below). I suspect they are simply parroting the press-releases, with the "emperor's clothes" syndrome. Privately most admit that it has little chance of success.

Heck, I can't explain the IOM strategy. I was the dinner speaker at a recent JP Morgan Analysts Conference in Houston, and they'd just had a pitch from Sudipta and Ulf armed with a plethora of Powerpoints. None of the analysts understood the strategy, and they were asking ME to explain it!

Peter Martin, IOM's VP of "business value generation" (now, there's a trumped-up title!), explained the IOM strategy at the recent ARC meeting in Orlando, FL. Apparently, Ulf was not there, and Sudipta was supposed to pontificate. But a last minute switch put Peter Martin on center-stage - perhaps that's why they made him VP (of what?) and he bravely recounted the story.

What this all actually represents, said Peter Martin, is the latest stage in an evolution which can be traced back to the original bringing together of the elements of IOM: Foxboro, Triconex, SimSci-Esscor, Wonderware and Eurotherm, all linked together in a single product line called InFusion.

It seems to me that this is simply a figment to explain how all these disparate pieces fit together; very little market savvy; sales channels expertise, zilch.

Peter insisted that, "Something has changed significantly". He dramatically announced that, "The whole business world is out of control" and business itself has become a real-time control problem, which needs real-time control systems and control engineers to run it. Invensys now "brings decision making down into the real-time world with the objective of what IOM calls "a real-time enterprise". Hey, if you can understand all this, "You're a better man than I am Gunga Din"!

Speaking to the London Sunday Times shortly after announcing Invensys' Q3 statement, Ulf proclaimed that Invensys was technology-led, providing advice and answers to business problems rather than being driven by selling "products". Of course, this surprised many IOM product people and their vital sales channels. Whoops! A case of "foot-in-mouth".

Positioned between the likes of Siemens, ABB, Accenture and IBM, Ulf saw Invensys as being in the "sweet spot" which others are clambering to occupy. Apparently, Ulf drank the cool-aid. But Sudipta brewed the brew. I feel a poem coming...

Ulf didn't deny the possibility of a bid for the company. The important thing, he insisted, was a share price that values the company properly, so "it doesn't go too cheap." Clearly, he's getting ready to jump ship.