The Promise of Robotics

Weisel has focused on strategic alliances in areas as diverse as healthcare to unmanned flight to homeland security. Former Attorney General John Ashcroft, a longtime friend of Weisel, joined Innova's board of advisors last year. Ashcroft currently heads a Washington-based homeland security consulting firm, and Weisel sees the relationship as a valuable entrée into providing robots and controllers for port security and border surveillance.

In March, Innova announced its acquisition of Altronics Service Inc., a Port Charlotte company that produces devices used with automatic manufacturing equipment. That followed the May 2006 acquisition of CoroWare Technologies, headquartered on the Microsoft campus in Redmond, Wash. CoroWare was founded by Microsoft employees and works with Microsoft's Robotics Studio, which opened in June 2006 and represents the software giant's first major push into the field of robotics.

"Microsoft has a huge desire to get to the factory floor," says Weisel, who is a friend of Bill Gates. "They've had huge intentions but never made it."

There are some parallels between the current state of the art in robotics and the computer industry of 30 years ago.

"A handful of well-established corporations sell highly specialized devices for business use, and a fast-growing number of startup companies produce innovative toys, gadgets for hobbyists and other interesting niche products," Microsoft's Gates wrote in Scientific American in December 2006. "But it is also a highly fragmented industry with few common standards or platforms. Projects are complex, progress is slow, and practical applications are relatively rare. In fact, for all the excitement and promise, no one can say with any certainty when-or even if-this industry will achieve critical mass. If it does, though, it may well change the world."

Walt Weisel is ready.

"Ninety percent of what you need to do is based on those six axes," Weisel says. "Our job is to show the customer how to cost-justify it."