Keep on acquiring. That seems to be the modus operandi of companies vying for a piece of the manufacturing execution systems (MES) market, and it's not going to stop anytime soon, according to industry observers.
Siemens' acquisition of Elan Software Systems SA last month marks the latest attempt by an automation vendor to gain market share and industry expertise. In this case, Elan specializes in MES for the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, an area that Siemens had yet to address in its own MES offering. But this is not the big automation company's first MES acquisition, and there's a good chance it will not be its last.
"The ERP industry has been through severe consolidation over the past several years, and that will happen in the MES arena as well," said Julie Fraser, president of Cambashi Inc., a research firm. "What's interesting here is that MES is still somewhat of a battleground."
It's a battle between automation vendors - which in the past were the primary purchasers - and a new set of competitors, many of which are in the enterprise applications market.