A lot of things happened during the first quarter of 2008 for the OPC Foundation.

This is not an all inclusive list but it's a quick ramble as I'm on my way to Germany for one of my important collaboration steering committee meetings. (FDI).

Feel free to contact me with any questions you may have about what the OPC Foundation has done or is planning on doing over the balance of the year.

Some of the major things going on in OPC in the first quarter included:

1. The OPC Independent Certification Test Lab Opened
2. OPC training events in 2008 kicked off with a seminar in Long Beach, followed by a seminar in Quincy, MA.
3. The OPCConnect (the electronic newsletter of the OPC Foundation) first edition of 2008 was released (click here to read this edition)
4. The OPC/IEC Unified Architecture working group met in January in Florida in a great hotel on the Gulf Coast.  It was quite a pleasure to get some warm weather.
5. OPC took advantage of the great networking opportunity by attending the ARC Forum in Orlando in February. 

Some of the major things that are going to happen with respect to OPC in the second quarter include:

1. OPC North American annual interoperability workshop is being held and hosted by Wonderware in Lake Forest California starting the week of March 31, 2008.   Check the news item for the list of companies that currently have registered and are bringing their products to be tested.
2. OPC will be hosting the first OPC Developer Workshop in Scottsdale, Arizona in June.   It will be a hot topic in more ways than one between the weather, and the extensive jumpstart that will be provided by the developers to companies that are planning and currently building products based on the OPC UA technology for 2008 deployment.
3. OPC will be participating in the Microsoft Manufacturing forum in April.
4. OPC will be participating and attending a number of OPC Foundation Member events, and presenting OPC UA to their respective end users/system integrator audiences.  Feel free to contact me if you're interested in OPC attending one of your end-user events.
5. OPC is creating a system integrator/distributor membership class and putting together the appropriate process and tools to facilitate certification of system integrators and distributors as OPC experts.   Make sure that your system integrators and distributors become members of the OPC Foundation and take advantage of this great opportunity.
6. The OPC TAC (Technical Advisory Council) will have a meeting in Redmond, with a packed agenda of visionary, strategic, and mainstream things to be executed and review.
7. The OPC Foundation members will be participating in PackExpo in May.   I'm very pleased with the work that my colleague David Bauman has been doing leading this very important initiative.  If you're interested in being a sponsor and participating in this event I encourage you to contact David Baumann immediately.
8. OPC is actively engaged in Connectivity Week with a special event called IndConn (Industrial Connectivity), and will have multiple tracks and very significant speakers/panelist participating and brainstorming the future.  This is a very significant event giving the OPC Foundation members the opportunity to enhance their product portfolio through taking advantage of both automation and domains outside of automation including building automation, power generation, and security.   This all got started through a partnership that was formed as part of our participation in GridWise.   David Hardin is the point of contact and more information about presenting and attending this event.  Anto Budiardjo is the point of contact for vendors interested in being a sponsor and increasing market share for their respective products.
9. OPC is engaged in automation IT sponsored by the OpenO&M initiative.  This is a great event that's being led by my colleagues at ISA and promises to be a well attended event with the leaders of our industry actively participating.  Contact Bob Crigler for more information.
10. OPC training events will continue with a visit to Pittsburgh, Seattle and Nashville in the second quarter of 2008.