We hear constantly about the economic woes of the various civilized nations of the world. We hear a lot about the various factors that are determining the erosion of our environment. We also hear much about the depleting energy sources and the dire need to conserve this valuable commodity. We now are told that nuclear energy sources are green. I guess it depends on how one views green.

The comments I am now often hearing are those concerning education. The UK Government is considering cutting university places available to aspiring higher education students, presumably to save costs. I would hope that this is to ‘focus’ the courses rather than to cut them across the board. Only time will tell.

When will elected servants in government realize that we need good, creative engineers? Those who can see a big-picture problem as an opportunity and who can develop designs to reduce the energy we consume and cleaner, greener ways to generate that which we need.

But where will these folks come from? They normally will not come from an education-starved system or from companies fuelled only by the single desire to please shareholders or management.

Hopefully our industry will soon recover and attract the quality engineers we need. Some segments such as automotive are already reporting resurgence; iSuppli commented that the year 2009 will be remembered as one of the most dismal years in the history of the global semiconductor business, with a plunge of more than $32 billion in revenue compared to 2008.

The difficult year for Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) hardware revenues also continued in 2009 with global revenues down more than 20% according to IMS Research. By contrast, UPS service and support revenues are forecast to have actually increased in 2009 by over 5%. For four straight quarters UPS hardware revenues have declined year-on-year. Geographically, the UPS market recovery is predicted to begin first in the Americas to be followed by EMEA and Asia, though it will be several years before demand returns to 2008 levels.

As many before me have predicted, it looks from the snapshot view that I get from our industry that while our natural start-of-the-year optimism will drive us positively forward. I think we are all aware that business will be tough for the foreseeable future. Probably a median somewhere between the analysts’ reports and the over-upbeat talk-ups from beleaguered firms is a good place to start.

Finally, at this time of year, we are looking forward to the highlight in the Power conference calendar, APEC. This year it is to be held in Palm Springs and PSD will as always, be participating. I hope to see you there.

Enjoy the issue, keep the feedback coming and check out our fun site, Dilbert, at the back of the magazine.

All the best!

Editorial Director, Power Systems Design

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