Schneider acquisition promises energy growth
28 Jan 2014
Executives at Schneider Electric anticipate strong growth in the company’s energy management products after it successfully completed a £3.4 billion takeover of Invensys earlier this month.
The acquisition, first announced in July 2013, was greeted by Schneider Electric chairman and chief executive Jean-Pascal Tricoire as a deal that would “reinforce [Schneider’s] industrial automation capabilities’ and “boost its positions in key energy-intensive segments”, thanks to Invensys’ specialism in developing automation solutions for the process industries.
For Schneider Electric customers, [this acquisition will bring] improved industrial automation capabilities
Schneider Electric’s Cyril Perducat
This point was further explained by Schneider Electric chief technical officer for Industry Business Cyril Perducat. Writing on his blog on the Schneider company website, Perducat said: “For Schneider Electric customers, [this acquisition will bring] improved industrial automation capabilities and an expansion of our energy management and software portfolios will bring increased value to their businesses. The deal also expands Schneider Electric’s position in energy management by allowing us to work with the energy-intensive customers of Invensys.”
Now that the merger has completed, executives will have to tackle the potential problems caused by those products owned by both Schneider and Invensys that are competitors, such Schneider’s Citect range of Human Machine Interface (HMI) software and Invensys’ Wonderware suite of products.
However, ARC Advisory Group automation analyst Craig Resnick told Process Engineering that he believed these two competitor products could exist side-by-side within the same company.
“Whenever there has been a major acquisition in the HMI software industry, the extensive installed base typically has kept all the major product lines alive, supported, and revised for years to come,” said Resnick.
“ARC would predict that Schneider Electric will follow the same pattern with Wonderware’s InTouch HMI/SCADA family and Schneider Electric’s Vijeo Citect HMI/SCADA family, continuing to actively deploy state-of-the-art versions of both solutions and supporting its customers’ legacy versions of both as well for years to come.”
