Mixed fortunes for the PLC sector.(Brief Article)

There will be `slight overall growth' in the programmable logic controller (PLC) market world-wide over the next five years, according to a forecast by ARC. Key revenue growth in this sector, thought to be worth up to $2bn, will continue to come from sales of unbundled, open I/O and software. PLC hardware suppliers will continue to struggle as hardware revenues decline at an annual rate above 2%.

As PLC hardware has become a commodity with a decline in price and profits, some PLC suppliers have begun selling their I/O and software as unbundled products, ARC notes. There will be increasing pressure to unbundle products and offer open components (PLC, CPU and I/O). …