Let's Talk October

Welcome to the new monthly newsletter called “Let’s Talk”. This newsletter is meant to be a personal and informative letter on industry news, and Mobiform’s thoughts and solutions. If during any point you wish to unsubscribe please just reply with “unsubscribe” in the subject line and I will ensure that you receive no future email newsletters.

Most of you have downloaded our industrial solution called Status Vision Designer, a real time data visualization tool that allows for the viewing and controlling of the industrial data most commonly controlled through OPC (Open Connectivity via Open Standards). If you haven’t downloaded a trial, feel free to do so at www.statusvision.com.

A lot of you that have downloaded may not know about all the services that we can offer to help you create a custom solution catering to your company’s needs. Mobiform specializes in graphic design and custom .Net development. Because Status is built on .Net we can easily extend and customize the software and projects you build to satisfy your exact needs.

Some examples of extending our software would be writing a custom data source plugin to communicate to a protocol other than OPC, creating a custom plugin or writing a custom control to fit your needs. We would like to provide you with a solution that you can just install and run.

In short, Mobiform can offer a number of services to better suit your needs. If any of this interests you, please do not hesitate to call and talk; after all, the newsletter is “Let’s Talk”.

Contact: Patrick Barker

Phone: 352.564.9610

Email: pbarker@mobiform.com

Status Lends Itself to Metro with XAML and .NET

Mobiform has built all of its software products on top of the .NET framework leveraging WPF and XAML. What does this mean for companies that invest in Mobiform Technology over the years?

When you invest in WPF, XAML, and .NET you are investing in core Microsoft Technologies that are at the heart of new Microsoft platforms including, Windows 8 as well as Metro, Microsoft’s new .NET platform for Windows 8. Metro applications are full screen apps tailored to the device they are running on. They are very ‘touch’ aware producing an intimate and immersive experience for the end user. When you invest in a technology that is Microsoft’s Core technology you can bet on it lasting, as well as growing and enhancing.

Where does Status fit in all of this…? For the next generation of Status we are looking at using loose XAML with a .NET runtime application to the cloud for data. The current Status product uses Visual Studio projects and compiles to a WPF applications or a Silverlight web site Silverlight is fully supported in Windows 8 and is still the most powerful technology in existence today for delivering high performance, graphics intensive applications over the web. Mobiform’s current version of Status will live on as Status Machine Edition and will continue to grow, improve and support new releases of Silverlight as they are available.

As Microsoft rolls out Windows 8 and Metro, Mobiform will be releasing Status Enterprise to run on any device that supports XAML and .NET. These include the Windows desktop, Windows 8 tablets; Mobile Devices with Windows Phone 7 or Metro … even Xbox.

For those looking to use other devices that are not running .NET friendly operating systems, the real time data services that Status communicates with will be web socket friendly allowing for the development of completely cross platform solutions for devices supporting HTML 5.

Keep checking back with Mobiform, we are going to have some pretty exciting products in the next two years…you won’t want to miss it!

www.statusvision.com

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Increase Visibility.. SCADA/HMI and SharePoint

We are reaching a point in the industrial market, as well as others that it is becoming necessary to share data and increase collaboration between all departments of the organization. By taking advantage of Status and SharePoint you can do just that.

One reason companies are taking advantage of SharePoint is to increase visibility, this can be safety information, downtime and quality. If companies take advantage of the Status web clients you can see real time operational data presented in Silverlight in your SharePoint client.  Many companies are still using paper to track down times, quality and production, or they have a separate application for each. By using SharePoint there will be no need to use paper, or separate applications to track your data.

The Status web clients operating in SharePoint will display all OPC data, or any custom data source inside SharePoint in real time. You can also monitor alarms and all historical data while inside SharePoint. By implementing a SharePoint solution, corporate wide visibility is now possible. 

www.statusvision.com 

Becoming more efficient

In recent years the need to become more energy efficient has gained prominence in today’s business society.

In a recent survey commissioned by energyrethinking, 40% of respondents said that one of the biggest barriers to becoming more energy efficient has been the upfront initial investment.  I tend to agree with that, but on the other hand if you invest in a solution like “Status” to monitor your energy consumption and turn off equipment that is not being used, or replace equipment that is drawing to much energy you can save anywhere from 9-11% in the first year. These savings have been realized by a company in South Korea called ChunCheon BioIndustry Foundation.

The ChunCheon BioIndustry Foundation is optimizing their HVAC controllers on time by a schedule using the Status Vision Designer. They reported saving 3-4% on energy consumption.  They have 3 buildings and each building had its own control room. By implementing a web solution, the have moved to a central control room reducing the need to hire additional engineers to monitor the buildings.  These savings were realized through a small investment. So although I would agree that some energy saving efforts can be a big initial investment, this customer realized a benefit by purchasing a remote monitoring solution at a small cost.

For companies looking to reduce energy consumption and become more efficient the first question needs to be, are you monitoring the data? If you or your employees do not know your business’s energy consumption, how can you improve?  So if you are looking for a way to monitor your energy usage and don’t know where to begin feel free to give us a call 352.564.9610.

Data got you Tangled?

Step out of this tangled web we call SCADA

Many companies today are looking for a change. They have complex systems that have been fused together over the years to provide more functionality and connectivity. Unfortunately with every new piece of technology added on to the system you get a bigger spider web that will eventually entangle your organization and reduce your ability to operate efficiently.  Having a system that has been pieced together over the years makes it difficult to maintain in a consistent manner, and will require an increasing amount of time for training staff, and the hiring of external consultants. One way to stop this snowball effect is through the introduction of standardization.

OPC is a great stepping stone to standardization. OPC is open connectivity via open standards. So now you have a way or a protocol to allow many devices from all sorts of vendors to communicate with each other. Once the protocol is in place you now can choose an HMI/SCADA vendor that is going to read and write back to your equipment via the OPC protocol.  This opens many doors for companies as you are not locked into a specific vendor.  There are many vendors that are OPC certified and will be able to communicate to your devices and display your information.

But what if you can’t standardize or you have devices that are using protocols not currently supported by industrial standards like OPC and BACNET or Modbus? That’s when the Status Vision Designer would be a perfect fit. The Status Vision Designer can be extended to talk with any type of data source. The data that you normally would have to manually pull out of a database to build a report is now displayed in real time from our HMI system.

For more details on how the Status Vision Designer can help you step out of the web please email or call Patrick at 352-564-9610 or pbarker@mobiform.com to book a web demonstration.

Mobiform and MatrikonOPC form Partnership

Mobiform partners with MatrikonOPC for secure OPC connectivity solutions

EDMONTON, AB May. 10, 2010 - MatrikonOPC™ announced today that Mobiform is the newest member to join its Global Partner Network. Mobiform will be integrating MatrikonOPC’s full range of OPC Servers into StatusVision - a powerful data visualization software package that serves as a sophisticated HMI (Human Machine Interface) and SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) designer for manufacturing and other process control industries. With MatrikonOPC’s secure and reliable OPC Servers, Mobiform will be able to provide web and Windows based connectivity to a wide range of devices regardless of their vendor. As a member of the MatrikonOPC Global Partner Network , Mobiform will standardize on MatrikonOPC for its OPC data connectivity solutions. The MatrikonOPC Vendor Partner Program enables software and hardware vendors to provide their customers with world class connectivity software and support, while keeping the vendors’ resources focused on their core areas of expertise. Being able to integrate MatrikonOPC’s solutions with Mobiform’s solutions will provide Mobiform customers with a best of breed solution that can be used with components from all major control system vendors. "Since delivering exceptional value to our customers is one of the cornerstones of our strategy for long term growth and Mobiform offers world class HMI/SCADA products for the Web and Windows, this partnership is built for success," said Drew Brydon, Vendor Partner Program Manager MatrikonOPC. "MatrikonOPC will work closely with Mobiform to help provide its customers with the right products and on-going live support to their OPC architectures." "Our customers already knew that using our Status Vision product line and Matrikon OPC servers, provides a reliable, compatible and effective combination for delivering real time data solutions. Making these products available together makes perfect sense, and will be even more convenient for our customers," said Ron DeSerranno, CEO Mobiform Software Inc. Learn more about the MatrikonOPC Vendor Program here: http://www.matrikonopc.com/partners/oem.aspx About Mobiform Software Inc. Mobiform Software Inc. (OTCBB: MOBS), specializes in the compelling visualization of real-time data and has produced exceptional data visualization solutions for manufacturing, power & utilities, automation, and other fields of business making use of HMI and SCADA software products. Mobiform leverages Silverlight, Windows Presentation Foundation and Windows Azure by Microsoft in the development of its products. http://www.mobiform.com/ About MatrikonOPC MatrikonOPC provides equipment data connectivity software based on the OPC standard. The MatrikonOPC promise is to empower customers with reliable data access to all major automation vendors’ systems, provide practical OPC training and deliver superior client care. MatrikonOPC builds close relationships with its customers to best address their business and technical needs. With offices in North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific and the Middle East, MatrikonOPC provides local presence on a global scale. MatrikonOPC is a vendor neutral connectivity supplier. Visit MatrikonOPC at www.MatrikonOPC.com.

Benefits of OPC-UA

Mobiform believes that the future of process control and building management relies on OPC UA. OPC UA was developed by the OPC Foundation and many of its members to provide a way to communicate to all divisions of the organization and to share information.

In today’s market we need to get out of the mindset of not sharing information.  Look at all the social networking sites, I mean I can go to Facebook and know when my brother or a friend stops at a restaurant.  But that has not quite caught on in the industrial market, but it’s starting to.  Companies need to share information with all divisions of their business in order to become more efficient. For example a company leaves work for the day and an employee has forgotten to turn off a machine, or an office light.  That month the plant manager notices that the energy consumption for the company was considerably higher when compared to last week, for no apparent reason.  Well without the sharing of data it could take months before the company realizes the problem, if they even realize it which could mean an increase in that companies’ expenses which reduce profit, as we all know. With OPC UA the plan is to share this information across all divisions of the company, so an event will be fired or a person notified if a machine or office light is left on.

Some key benefits of OPC UA include the following:

•          Modeling the data
•          Co-Exist with OPC classic (DA)
•          Platform Independent
•          Security
•          Discovery
•          Vendor Independence
•          No DCOM

Modeling the Data-OPC UA architecture provides a foundation to build application and enterprise specific information models. This allows for vendors to design their system with the information models in mind which we allow for a quicker configuration of the applications and HMI screens. So for example OPC UA can model a Motor, and this motor would have tags or as OPC UA refers properties and these properties would have values associated with them.  You could break down that even further and have a specific part on the Motor as a model and associated properties with that model. This will make for easier navigation in the tag browsing panel when binding the HMI screens.

  

Co-Exist with OPC Classic-OPC UA is built to be used with the other forms of OPC.  So you can take your existing OPC Servers and wrap them with the OPC UA technology.

  

Platform Independent- the OPC UA server has been written to be platform independent. What this means to the end user is that you can now communicate to a UA server whether it is on a windows machine, Linux, or embedded on a computer chip. This allows for your HMI client to display information coming from other sources that no one else in the business has seen before.  With more information companies can become more efficient, and sharing this information is the key.  The plant or office manager could have no idea that equipment or a light has been left on costing the company thousands of dollars in electricity cost, not to mention increased in maintenance. But by sharing this information across the company they can address and fix the issues, resulting in a larger profit at the end of the day.

Security- OPC UA has been built with security in mind. All vendors that will support OPC UA will have this functionality. Both the OPC UA Sever and Client with validate each other through the use of certificates. The messages that the OPC UA server and the OPC UA client send can be encrypted and will only be decrypted by a validated client or server through the use of certificates.  

Vendor Independence-of course vendor independence has been one of the main goals of OPC since its inception. The end user should not be locked into one specific vendor for any given task. OPC UA allows the end user the freedom to pick and choose the vendor that is right for the specific task at hand.

NO DCOM-one of the biggest benefits prior users of OPC will notice is there is no need to configure the clients for DCOM.  OPC UA is DCOM free!  OPC UA can communicate by standard HTTP or through a UA TCP port, or any other port that the admin has set up.

Status Vision enables companies to increase productivity and efficiency with its new version of Status Vision Designer®.

For Immediate Release April 4, 2011

Mobiform Software enables companies to increase productivity and efficiency with its new version of Status Vision Designer®.

Crystal River, Florida - Mobiform Software Inc.,(OTCBB:MOBS) April 4, 2011— Mobiform
Software Inc. released the newest version 4.0 of the Status Vision Designer® Today.  This
new version includes many features requested by the end user. Mobiform believes that
with customer feedback we can continue to deliver a great product that is going to help
save money!

Security has been a big concern with HMI/SCADA applications and Mobiform addresses
this concern by implementing security in all projects. Status Vision Designer® supports
Microsoft Active Directory using the LDAP protocol to control who has access to different
parts of the window project. Security is also available for web projects.

Design modifications have been added to increase functionality. This includes the ability
to create complex shapes by joining 2 or more shapes together, or by subtracting one
shape out of another.  Another design modification feature added to help save on design
time is aligning and spacing groups of objects that are selected on the design surface.
Data interoperability, allows the creation of projects that can have multiple data sources.
These data sources would include all forms of OPC, including OPC UA, SQL, and  ODBC.
Status can also be extended to use any form of data.

A living product, Status Vision Designer was built with the .NET Framework. What this
means to the end user is the software will always Grow with the .NET Framework. The
new version of Status utilizes the .NET 4.0 Framework and Silverlight 4.

Client Side Calculations, allow for the creation of bindable tags that are generated from
the custom calculations that are created, or the calculations that are provided.
3D Controls have been added to the toolbox to help create a more realistic screen.

Status Vision Designer® is offered as a powerful Windows and Web solution for the visualization of any business data and at a fraction of the cost when compared to other vendors. With no Tag limits, and New technology this is, and will be, a very scalable solution
for years to come.

Welcome to the StatusVision Blog

The Status Vision Designer® is a powerful data visualization software package that serves as a sophisticated HMI (Human Machine Interface) and SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) designer for manufacturing and other process control industries. Status can also be used for creating digital dashboards and digital signage applications to display your real time data on the Web and in Windows.

Status can be used display real time data from OPC DA, OPC UA, OPC HDA, OPC AE, and OPC XML DA Servers. Solutions from Status are run in a Web Browser using Microsoft Silverlight with XAML, or can be run as a regular Windows Application. Status can connect to your OPC DA Data without the need for DCOM on the client, and can be extended to support other custom data sources in addition to OPC.

Mobiform Software Inc.
http://www.statusvision.com/