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Technology Stocks : Echelon Corporation (ELON) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: spiral3 who wrote (2359)	6/22/2000 10:10:00 AM
From: Lone Star	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 3076

From Raging Bull, originally from Motley fool board... I copy here, with permission, my question to Echelon regarding Micorosoft's SCP announcement and the response from Echelon's Vice President of Product Marketing and Customer Services, Mike Tennefoss. I won't editorialize, except to say that I've dealt with public companies wearing a few different hats, but e-mailed Echelon only as an individual investor. The response was swift and on point, and as appreciated as it is unusual. My Question I noticed Microsoft's announcement today at the Chicago Automation Conference trumpeting its home networking "Simple Control Protocol." While the etiology of SCP is still a bit unclear, the announcement is worrisome for several reasons. First, Microsoft's technology appears to be a potential home control protocol that could be directly competitive with lonworks in that market segment. Second, Echelon, despite being on the UPnP steering committee, is not listed as a "supporter" of SCP on MSFT's web site. Third, the technology appears to have powerful backing, including MSFT, GE, and the CEBus Industry Council. Finally, this line from MSFT's FAQs appears to indicate that SCP represents a move away from lonworks (as does its intimate ties to Domosys): "Since the CEBus standard and HPnP specification come the closest to SCP, chips and tools for developing CEBus/HPnP products are available today, and CEBus/HPnP products are shipping today, we recommend developing products with CEBus/HPnP today, will planning a migration path to SCP for tomorrow's products." Can your confirm or assuage any of my concerns? Thanks in advance. Echelon's Answer Your e-mail was forwarded to me for a reply. This appears to be an effort to revive CEBus by calling on different manufacturers, making different implementations of CEBus, to reach a convergence in their implementations. Apparently chips will be made - but the details of the protocol are unknown and the chips won't be available for at least a year. It's also not clear if they will stick with the CEBus power line signaling standard, which has major performance issues. Domosys, one of the identified manufacturers, already makes CEBus chips. What wasn't mentioned was any effort to standardize on a network management architecture, historically a weak point with automation systems but an area in which Echelon has devoted many resources and has, in LNS, and extraordinary solution. A similar convergence effort, called "Convergence," has been underway for a couple of years in Europe between EHS (EEC funded), EIB (Siemens), BatiBus (Merlin Gerin), and CEBus. I think it's fair to say that this group is struggling and to this date no products have resulted from this effort. One reason why this group is struggling is because they have focused on protocols and transceivers, but not on end-to-end solutions incorporating network management, development tools, routers, and related products. All in all what we're seeing in these two convergence efforts is an acknowledgement that the home market is here (finally). Echelon is well positioned to capitalize on this market because we offer end-to-end solutions, and we have both years of experience and millions of shipped devices that validate the robustness and economy of our solution. Mike