Networking for the year 2001-an irrelevant issue?

The paper suggests that endless discussions on the purely technological issues relating to future networks to be used in factory automation, process control or any other distributed computer system, are essentially irrelevant! Suitable inter-computer communication mechanisms are, of course, required in any given application; however, system designers must not lose sight of the broader objectives of computer integration and must avoid the distractions created by implementation issues! The paper suggests that to design successful control systems one must understand what the problem really is, regardless of technological limitations. Having discovered the real problems, one will be in a position to select appropriate solutions from the host of existing and future products which are being offered in ever increasing numbers