For those of you who celebrate it, Happy Easter, and a big Welcome to Spring for everyone.   It’s a time of new beginnings, growth and blossoming. 

Speaking of new things popping up, if you’ve been browsing around the OPC Foundation blog site, you may have noticed the new OPC TAC blog.  For those who might not know, last summer the OPC Foundation formed the Technical Advisory Council (TAC) to advise the management and help guide the technical direction of the Foundation.  The goal of the OPC TAC blog is to be a source of information on what is happening with the OPC Foundation and the progress of the various OPC UA initiatives.  As members of the Technical Advisory Council, myself and the others will be posting there.

So why another OPC blog?   The idea kind of started when Tom and I were chatting at a recent Roadshow, and I was giving him a hard time over his blog.  (Of course with Tom’s frantic travel schedule, OPC Foundation duties, Roadshow presentations and cross-industry collaboration initiatives, I’m personally amazed the man finds time to brush his teeth, let alone regularly update a blog).   Jokingly he suggested I could help him out with a post or two.  That led to a few more discussions (and more than a few Sam Adams).    Since blogs are both a means of communicating a message and receiving reader feedback, and since the TAC members act as representatives for all OPC members, the eventual outcome was the creation of the OPC TAC blog.

The goal of the OPC Exchange blog always was, and still is, to talk about how and where OPC is being used in industry today.   To be a trusted source to answer questions like: Who is using OPC and Why? Where is OPC going, and how do users get there from where they are today?   On the other hand, the OPC TAC blog is like a window into what is happening with the OPC Foundation and the great stuff going on with OPC UA.   I’m more than happy to get up on the now even bigger OPC soapbox and give my two cents on those topics too. 

After all, you can never say enough about OPC.  Stay tuned.