WiTECK
WiTECK (Wireless Industrial Technology Consortium) is an open non-profit organization for the manufacturer and platform-independent implementation of wireless standards for process and factory automation . The manufacturer association based in the US state of Delaware was founded in May 2008 by leading manufacturers of automation solutions and wireless components.
aims
Unlike field bus organizations , WiTECK does not adopt standards, but implements the respective specifications in software that is compliant with the standards. The purpose of the WiTECK consortium is the joint development and maintenance of software that corresponds to industrial wireless standards. As a first step, WirelessHART was developed.
Consortium members
Currently (March 2012) the following companies are members of the WiTECK consortium (in alphabetical order):
The consortium currently distinguishes between two categories of members: promoters and adopters.
Promoters
The so-called promoters, to which all current members belong, on the one hand drive the technical development of WirelessHART . On the other hand, they bear the brunt of the financing with a one-time membership fee of 200,000 and annual membership fees of 40,000 US dollars. In return, they get access to the source code of the standard, which they can use license-free in their own hardware products (e.g. chips, modules or field devices ) and are the only ones entitled to vote at meetings, so they can largely determine WiTECK's policy.
Adopter
According to the initiators, the second group, the adapters, will in future include research laboratories, norms and standardization organizations, universities and authorities. For an annual fee of $ 8,000, they would have access to all technical information; H. in particular about the programming interfaces and the joint support (defect tracking system) of the consortium as well as the mailing lists and the internal FAQ platform. In addition, adopters are given a discount when purchasing WiTECK development environments and the right to label their products with the WiTECK logo. However, they only take part in general meetings in an advisory capacity.
Licensing Agents
WiTECK is currently the only "product" to offer the protocol software for WirelessHART , which promoters can embed in their own products. This platform-independent software can, however, also be licensed to device manufacturers who are not members of WiTECK. The so-called licensing agents take on this task. They fulfill a double function: On the one hand, they do the actual development and programming work, for which WiTECK grants them permission to modify, port, expand and market the original software independently. On the other hand, the licensing agents act as a kind of middleman or broker, who in turn sell licenses to the non-members as described. Softing currently holds this role, but theoretically any (other) promoter could join.
Business model
Owner of the WirelessHART - Stacks is the consortium itself with the admission fees of the promoters were given the development of the protocol in order.. All promoters are allowed to embed and use the source code license-free in their own products. As long as the code is sold in combination with hardware (e.g. a microcontroller, a module or a sensor), WiTECK does not have to pay any fees. However, as soon as the software is licensed as Object Code, license fees are due. Only licensing agents (a subset of the promoters) are allowed to sell pure software licenses.