MatrikonOPC User Conferences coming to Houston and Koln, Germany, this fall

Edmonton, Alberta, Canada -- June 14, 2006 -- Matrikon Inc. today announced dates for the MatrikonOPC User Group Conference in Houston, TX and Koln (Cologne), Germany. Themed "Driving Connectivity," this event is committed to providing practical hands-on information for industrial connectivity issues. The MatrikonOPC User Group conference is designed for professionals from the plant-floor to boardroom levels. Sessions will equip attendees with intelligence for users of all experience levels, with tracks focused on OPC fundamentals, advanced OPC integration and corporate strategies.

Scheduled in Houston, Texas on Sept 13-14 and Koln, Germany on Oct 11-12, 2006, MatrikonOPC, with industry experts and end-users will present best practices, lessons learned, case studies and vendor neutral solutions. Events surrounding the conference dates include OPC hands-on workshops, Executive Standardization sessions, SCADA Security Classes and interactive panel discussions.

OPC stands for "OLE for Process Control" and is designed to bridge Windows based applications and process control hardware. As OPC technology commemorates its 10th anniversary, the community of users and champions increases rapidly. Industry support for this event includes sponsorship participation from pacesetters including the OPC Foundation, Putman Media; Control, Control Design and Industrial Networking magazines, Automation.com and several others.

Among the many outstanding speakers is Dick Morley - father of the programmable controller (PLC), Jim Pinto - industry commentator, Tom Burke - OPC Foundation President, Eric Murphy - OPC Foundation HDA Chairperson, and many other industry experts.

Conference topics include:
• Understand advantages of implementing OPC technologies
• Learn different OPC specifications (OPC DA, A&E, HDA, XML, UA)
• Resolve common and advanced DCOM problems
• Securely passing process data through firewalls
• Increase system interoperability
• Automating process control systems
• Data exchange and amalgamation
• SCADA Security

"The MatrikonOPC Conference is a very important opportunity to learn about the technology," says Tom Burke, President of the OPC Foundation. "Attendees will learn a lot about the different vendors and learn about Matrikon's dedicated commitment behind OPC, being that they are one of the driving companies for the OPC Foundation and the technology. They are a company to watch and a company to stay in tune with."

About MatrikonOPC
MatrikonOPC is the world's largest OPC developer, with a collection of over 500 interfaces. Boasting more than 30,000 users and over 100,000 installations around the world, MatrikonOPC provides connectivity to every major control system and application on the market.