As Henry Kissinger once said of Richard Nixon, "Even paranoids have real enemies." Emerson has been at the top of the heap for long enough now that us end users, the ones with short memories, can't imagine it being any other way.
But Emerson's own people remember a long period of time when they were like the Avis of process automation, and the Rodney Dangerfield of it at the same time...and they have very long memories of what it was like.
They never want to be there again, so yes, they are a little situationally paranoid.
Sometimes this leads to public relations gaffes, like the one at ARC in February of this year, but mostly it leads to an intense desire to win and keep customers. This, Emerson is very good at.
So maybe some of Emerson's competitors should borrow a little of that paranoia. It would be good for the end users and the entire automation community if every supplier was working for the betterment of the end user customer.
Remember, if you keep your customers happy, it is very hard to lose money at it.
A happy end user is a loyal end user...
