Over the past half-century, so many technology and marketing developments have affected our lives and our work. It would take this entire issue to do justice to only these inventions, developments, creations and changes that have affected the electric power transmission and distribution world in which we work. Therefore, for this special edition of T&D World, I wanted to capture the thoughts of some of the thousands of people who have played a role in the formation of the industry as it is today. From the beginning of this endeavor, I decided to limit my discussions to include only those people who have worked in either the automation field or in the utility field for at least 25 years, and who have seen a half-century or more of life experiences. I wanted to seek out people with different backgrounds -- relaying, supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA), energy management, remote terminal units, power quality, transformer monitoring and the like --who have played a role in shaping today's world of utility automation. Vince Horvath, founder and CEO of Bitronics, a leading independent metering company, suggested that "the integration of microprocessors in measurement and control hardware and equipment" was the most significant technological development that has impacted the utility field. From a marketing standpoint, Vince said, "Implementation of networking within substations allows for greater access to intelligent devices through high-speed wide area networks." Ray Fernandez, a vice president of PPL, stated, "The microprocessor used in relaying, SCADA systems and other equipment provides faster, more accurate, real-time information." Without hesitation, Fernandez added a single word to describe market changes -- deregulation. He went on to say, "There is also a trend to look for more efficient, more accurate, more economical means of providing T&D services underway. We are looking for more economical means of providing the same T&D services and improving service and system reliability." Mike Stedman, director of business planning for Trench Limited, suggested that, "In the transformer industry, the biggest development has been in high-voltage equipment design, and the use of computer and engineering design software, which has evolved from AutoCad to today's modeling and simulation software." From a marketing perspective, Stedman views four important developments as crucial to his company's portion of the T&D industry. These developments include: "the change in equipment specifications from yesterday's largely utility specific requirements to today's national and international standards; the tremendous improvements in product quality, with thanks to ISO 9000 and now Six Sigma practices; the time to market is much faster today than in prior decades; and finally, the positive outlook among suppliers and utility customers to form partnerships and strategic alliances. Gary Hoffman, CEO of Advanced Power Technologies, a technology start-up designed to serve the unmet relay needs of the changing electric-power industry, and formerly general manager of Alstom's U.S.-based Protection and Control Division, viewed two developments as having revolutionized the industry: "First, the microprocessor, which allowed manufacturers to develop products that are smaller, cheaper and smarter. Secondly, the development of high-speed digital communications has been a great technology enabler. It gives the utilities great bandwidth that they are only beginning to utilize." Looking at key marketing trends, Hoffman cited three key developments: "the development of a unified communications protocol; with the amount of data created by all of the intelligent devices, there is a growing need for expert systems that do something with this data; and finally, the use of the Internet will revolutionize the access and dissemination of information." John Muench, CEO of Advanced Control Systems, the country's largest privately-held SCADA and distribution management system (DMS) company, stated that "Deregulation will drive automation down to the distribution level, with major systems architecture focused on distribution optimization. That is where improvements will come with the assistance of forthcoming technology advances. EMS will be relegated to the independent system operator (ISO) level, while SCADA and DMS will become critical to distribution operations." Regarding technology developments, Muench indicated that "the development of UNIX architecture was a critical breakthrough in operating systems, paving the way for a host of 'open systems' developments." Muench expressed misgivings at the current euphoria over Windows NT in this mission critical environment, indicating, "NT could be the biggest threat to stability and security in tomorrow's control center. NT is not a stable enough platform to host mission-critical systems. NT's use as a client is fine but not so at the server level." Stan Kijewski, vice president of information services for PJM Interconnection, indicated, in no uncertain terms, that "the availability of applications packages to help cope with the issues confronting organizations in the transition to deregulation, and applications for use by ISO and power exchange organizations" is at the top of his list of technology developments. From a market trends perspective, the formation of ISOs, such as PJM Interconnection and power exchanges, represents a profound change in the way electricity is brought to market. I've developed my own personal "top-of-the-list" views on technology and marketing developments. First, the development of the microprocessor is undoubtedly the single most important technology development leading to almost all of today's T&D "automation" infrastructure. Secondly, the host of more recent developments that are having profound influence in our work with computer-based systems. In my book, the top developments are the Internet (yet to realize its full potential in the T&D world) and the availability of relational database management systems, which now are so pivotal in the control centers of today's progressive utilities. From a market trends viewpoint, my money is on the changing nature of industry suppliers who will become the dominant few through merger and acquisition as the number of larger suppliers shrinks. Additionally, I believe today's technology-based hardware, software and services "niche" specialists will continue to play a valuable role in various T&D automation fields.