Ask the same question but substitute the words “hardware” and “software”...  Which comes first the hardware or the software? Surprisingly the answer is rapidly changing. In the past there wouldn’t be a moment’s hesitation before one blurted out the answer “The HARDWARE STUPID”.

Jason Briggs - CEO for J2 Innovations

Increasingly the driver for emerging innovation purchasing, comes from the software side. One way to look at the proliferation of open source protocols and application programming interfaces is that the hardware manufacturers have tipped their hand, a de-facto acknowledgment that software is the... “straw that stirs the BAS drink”.

The BAS industry has unquestionably embraced this new marketing paradigm. Keep this under your hat but J2 is under development, even as we speak, with a number of the biggest product manufactures in the industry, to make software that will sell their products. The fascinating aspect of this shifting of roles is the often over-used term of “integration”.

If the product manufactures are Dr. Frankenstein we are the “integration monster” they have created. The industry is saying that we need better software to make the hardware perform better and not vice versa. Manufacturers will soon realize, if they haven't already, that they need to make it easy for developers to add to and integrate with their products, if their goal of greater functionally is to be achieved. 

What we have done with FIN Builder is to make an API so that a user can utilize the same tool to make his UI regardless of what physical device he is communicating with, similar to a universal tv remote control in the sense that diverse multiple hardware devices are brought together through a singular control point that is familiar and user-friendly. In the not too distant future, devices, sensors, global controllers, and more will be able to connect directly to FIN without the necessity for the user to learn and navigate multiple unfamiliar interfaces.

The Tridium Summit of years past was first and foremost, a show of the power for the 1000 lb gorilla “Tridium”, everything else was just an afterthought or side show. Now with the development of Niagara AX, summit-goers are saving their greatest excitement for the numerous developers competing for their software attention. Once the genie is out of the bottle it is so hard to get her back in. How many future iPhones would be sold if Apple nixed all the ingenious third party apps that the users have grown to depend upon?

We have met the “Integrator” and it is us.  Over the months and years that lay ahead, the company that steps up to fill this new role will not only provide software integration for one particular manufacturer but imminently more importantly, they will provide a common user-identifiable interface that operates across all product lines and web service portals. J2 has what we feel to be a sizable lead in the BAS Integration Tech Race... stay tuned.