MC² Market & Competitive Convergence

March, 1999
Orlando, Florida USA

Article appeared in Filtration News

Back when a name meant something, the Pittsburgh Conference, an analytical and spectroscopy event, was held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania USA, the Steel City. But now, the mills have disappeared, the name is Pittcon, and who knows if they’ll ever go back. The next one, in 2000, will be held in New Orleans, March 12-17. My first, Pittcon ’80, was in Atlantic City, New Jersey USA, on the boardwalk, before Donald Trump transformed the town, back when the hotels closed for the winter and opened just as we arrived, and Johnny Carson’s standup was the draw. Now, Pittcon is celebrating its fiftieth anniversary, and what better spot during March 7-12 than Orlando, Florida USA, home to Disney World and the biggest lab rat of them all, Mickey Mouse.

Mickey would have been right at home at the Pall Gelman (Ann Arbor, Michigan USA) stand, where cartoon lab rats, err... mice,  have been selling lab filtration products by offering coupons redeemable for free stuff, like T-shirts with cool sayings, since the early eighties, when it was Gelman Sciences, Inc. It’s nice to see that at least those venerable rodents survived Pall Corporation’s (East Hills, New York USA) takeover, when many people didn’t. With so many personnel changes, you have to wonder about the continuity of an organization. But it’s almost like genetics; life goes on with the next generation. Charles (Chuck) Gelman, representing the past generation, was at the conference. Out of the filter business since Pall acquired the company about a year ago, Mr. Gelman said he was only visiting.

This conference is big enough, with some 1,200 exhibitors and 12,000 conferees, to attract the movers and the shakers of the laboratory filtration and separation industry, both past and present. Paul Saliskar, a past Gelman VP and now president of Whatman USA (Clifton, New Jersey USA), was there answering questions and directing traffic in their busy booth. Typical of what one finds in the well-appointed lab-filter stand, Whatman’s had beautifully packaged filter & separation flat-stock filter discs and disposable plastic widgets used to filter analytical samples and  lab-scale process fluids.

On the high-purity-gas side of the business, Environmental Sample Technology, Inc. (Cincinnati, Ohio USA) displayed Peak Scientific Instruments Ltd.’s (Renfrew, Scotland UK) new tabletop gas generators, designed to replace those bulky nitrogen and hydrogen tanks, addressing the safety concerns of storing hydrogen. Their “Zero Air” unit to purify compressed house air, claiming hydrocarbon levels less than 0.1 ppm, sounds ideal for fuel gas applications. Gas companies, like Air Liquide, are having units like these made under their labels, so look for these products to start appearing everywhere, creating opportunities for aftermarket filter manufacturers.

What struck me most about this conference was not so much the products, but how they were being sold and purchased. The laboratory market, I think, is a bellwether for judging the impact the Internet will have on industrial filter sales. That’s because the lab market is strategically juxtaposed between the consumer world on one end, where people are routinely buying from the likes of Amazon.com, and the manufacturing world, where standards and specifications compete with individual initiative. Lab people, resembling retail consumers, often directly influence or, indeed, buy their own filters, and personally use what they buy. That’s why Gelman’s lab-rat -promoted coupons are successful in the lab market but couldn’t cross over to the chemical process industry. So don’t look for a redeemable coupon in your next box of Pall sterilizing filters. Just imagine!

Although no one could give me any facts or figures on what impact the Internet was having on the buying habits of this market, its bow wake was evident. You could feel it underfoot. Pittcon’99 opened with VWR Scientific Products (West Chester, Pennsylvania USA), a distributor of laboratory supplies, including filtration and separation products, chemicals and equipment, and Chemdex Corporation (Palo Alto, California USA), a provider of electronic commerce solutions for the laboratory research market, jointly announcing their new alliance to bring an e-commerce solution to the time and effort required by researcher’s to acquire the one-million or so products they need, that are supplied by more than 4,000 manufacturers. The focus of the alliance will be on the products manufactured by those who sell directly, rather than through distributors, said Jerrold B. Harris, VWR president and CEO.

Still skeptical about the Internet’s influence on the industrial filtration market? Well, you’re not alone, but at Pittcon’99, you could hear the footfalls – and they weren’t Mickey’s – of an emerging trend. In “Business @ the Speed of Thought,” Bill Gates predicts that the Internet will “disintermediate” the middleman, eliminating his role in assisting the transaction between the producer and the consumer. His advise? Use the Internet to get back in the action.

Business @ the Speed of Thought: Using a Digital Nervous System, by William H. Gates, III, published by Warner Books USA, March 1999.

Pittcon’s Web site:  http://www.pittcon.org