I'm excited to announce that the OPC Europe Council is doing a lot of wonderful activities to evangelize and grow the OPC Foundation in Europe,  growing adoption of the OPC Foundation technology and increasing awareness of the value proposition for OPC Foundation certification programs.  Details about the OPC Europe organization are regularly being updated on the OPC Foundation website and OPC Europe companies are leveraging the technology of SharePoint for collaboration between all the OPC Europe companies (OPC Europe Sharepoint)

The following are the Officers for OPC Europe:

OPC Europe Board of Directors

OPC Europe Officers

I'm very interested in getting other companies to be part of the OPC Europe Council,  and specifically representation for many of the countries in Europe that we have not yet identified a delegate for.   The OPC Europe Council is chartered with increasing the membership from OPC Europe with a net gain of 10% this year,  doubling the adoption of the OPC technology (OPC UA, & OPC Xi),  and facilitating 20 OPC UA products being certified in the OPC Foundation certification Lab.

OPC Europe has already successfully choreographed participation with PLCopen in two trade shows in Germany this year (building and lighting in Frankfurt,  and the Hannover Messe).  

There is also an OPC Foundation Booth planned for SPS in Nuremberg Germany (November 2010) (there will be an exciting demonstration of the technology,  several press conferences, and a number of developer and end-user seminars about the OPC Foundation technology).   The following companies have committed to participate as sponsors OPC Foundation Booth planned for SPS. (This list will be published on the OPC Foundation website, and sent out to the media as part of a press release):

Option1: (panel only)  :

Unified Automation,  Beckhoff

Cost 1500 Euros

Option2: (partner pod + panel):

Ascolab, HB-SoftSolution, Matrikon, Siemens, Kepware, Embedded Labs 

Cost 3000 Euros

If you think that your company has already signed up to be a sponsor and you're not on this list please let me know ASAP by sending me an e-mail to (Thomas J. Burke)

If your company is interested in being a sponsor in the OPC Foundation Booth planned for SPS, please send me an e-mail to get you on the waiting list (it will be first come first serve) (Thomas J. Burke)

There also activities in Denmark and Finland that the OPC Foundation is participating in,  as well as a lot of exciting things happening in OPC France.

Stefan Hoppe, President OPC Europe Status update:

Common group PLCopen/OPC-Foundation: Spec released
Specification is now officially released from both organizations and available for download
The  Chairman (Stefan Hoppe) of this group offers his special thanks to authors Matthias Damm and Rene Simon, for their extreme dedication in getting this specification completed in a timely fashion.

OPC Foundation at trade show Light&Building (first time at vertical market event)
Date 11.04 – 16.04.2010, in Frankfurt Germany

Common booth PLCopen/OPC: Hall 9.0 booth C10

Live demo PLCopen/OPC-UA with
Controllers: Ifak (Siemens-S7), Logicals, K&W, UnifiedAutomation-Demo-Server, Beckhoff, New: Bosch-Rexroth
Scada: Allmendinger, Inosoft, Ascolab, Certec, Iconics, New: CopaData

OPC Foundation at trade show Hannover Messe
Date 19.04 – 23.04.2010, in Hanover, Germany
Common booth PLCopen/OPC: Hall 9 booth A54

Highlight: Daily demo of OPC-UA solution from company SAP, product name “SAP plant connectivity”

Live demo PLCopen/OPC-UA with
Controllers: Ifak (Siemens-S7), Logicals, K&W, UnifiedAutomation-Demo-Server, Beckhoff, Bosch-Rexroth
Scada: Allmendinger, Inosoft, Ascolab, Certec, Iconics, CopaData

A German article will be published in magazine “SPS-Magazin” 04-2010 and (little modified) also in “Computer&Automation”
So OPC in general is visible in magazines and promotes good value and visibility to get more attendees to join OPC booth at trade shows.

We will be listing all the companies that are active and participating in the OPC Europe Council on the OPC Europe webpage.   We're also looking for volunteers to help us put together content for the OPC Europe website.