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March 2001: SoftPLC Corp., the leader in PLC-like controls based on industrial computers, and InduSoft, the leader in Windows CE and Internet-enabled HMI and SCADA systems, have interfaced their products. This combination makes it possible for SoftPLC users to also have a sophisticated HMI/data acquisition system, and easy connections to both wireless instrumentation and the Internet.
SoftPLC Corp. does not offer its own HMI and data acquisition software, and historically has preferred to make it easy for its customers to use third-party HMI packages. In forming an alliance with InduSoft, SoftPLC makes it easy for their customers to gain access to InduSoft's powerful Web Studio software. "With SoftPLC, we don't require that you use 'our' HMI," says Cindy Hollenbeck, Vice President of Marketing at SoftPLC. "Instead, we provide a true hardware level driver interface to InduSoft's Web Studio, not some slow layered software interface like DDE or OPC."
InduSoft's Web Studio is an HMI and SCADA system that runs in native Windows CE 3.0, NT, 98 and 2000 environments. The package can migrate upward from an embedded CE 3.0 instrumentation controller to a large-scale NT-based supervisory or distributed control system. Web Studio is Web-enabled and has XML outputs, so it can communicate with everything from Ethernet-based instrumentation (including SoftPLC) to higher level enterprise software over the Internet. InduSoft also supports WAP (Wireless Application Protocol), SMS (short message service) and 802.11B wireless, so that Web Studio can communicate with virtually every type of wireless device currently in use on the plant floor.
"The interface to the SoftPLC system also gives us access to their well-proven API for connecting directly to Allen-Bradley PLCs, such as the PLC-2, PLC-5, SLC-500 and PLC-3," says Ernie Roland, president of InduSoft. "Otherwise, we would have to use a slow OPC connection. SoftPLC provides this vital interface for us."
The alliance benefits both companies. SoftPLC can offer its customers assurance of a working interface to the most sophisticated HMI and SCADA system in the control industry, while InduSoft gains access to extremely fast, feature-rich PLC equipment and drivers.
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