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by David R. Brousell, MA Editorial Staff   | Abstract: | The past year has seen major developments in enterprise applications, plant floor to business systems integration, in PLM and on the IP front.
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Each year at this time I look back over the stories that MA has covered during the past 12 months to get a sense of what the most important events were in manufacturing and the world of advanced technology. Of course, many of the subjects we cover don't neatly fit into calendar compartments, but the exercise of taking stock is useful to see what has been accomplished and what will continue to be in our focus in the year ahead. In many ways, MA's coverage over the year now concluding, or any year, is an ongoing conversation about how manufacturers are running their businesses and using technology to improve what they do. Their moods and attitudes -- influenced by the economy, the state of their businesses and events in the technology industry -- affect the tone of this conversation. You could almost plot the rhythm on a line graph. And we do. The sense of renewed confidence about the economy and the prospects for their own businesses that manufacturers expressed in an MA poll released in January of 2005 was an important story for much of the year. Higher levels of confidence trickle down to technology budgets and spending, and that's exactly what we saw happen in technologies ranging from enterprise applications to automation systems. [Click to continue] |