A summary of “Software Wars AHR Education Session”
Moderated by Scott Cochrane, President & CEO, Cochrane Supply, featuring: Stephen Holicky Chief Product Officer, Tridium, Inc, Kimon Onuma, President, Onuma, Inc., Dave Molin, Global President at Honeywell, and Lenny Joseph, Founder & CEO, Greenole | KLPD | BidTracer, John Sublett, VP of R & D, CTO at Distech Controls
The AHR Expo 2025 brought together some of the brightest minds in building automation for a conversation that turned out to be far more collaborative than its “Software Platform Wars” title suggested. Moderator Scott Cochrane, noting that AHR would not allow a cage in the room, was followed by something better: a genuine exploration of how platforms are evolving to serve an industry at an inflection point. With panelists representing Tridium, Distech Controls, Honeywell, Greenole, and a perspective from the BIM world, the discussion revealed that the real battle is not between platforms, but against fragmentation, complexity, and the urgent need to make building data usable.
Key Takeaways from the Panel
Platforms are not the product; they are the enabler. Stephen Holicky of Tridium reminded the audience that the Niagara framework does nothing out of the box. Its value emerges only when system integrators mold it into solutions that delight building owners and improve margins. The platform’s job is to get out of the way and let the experts work.
Buildings change constantly, and platforms must adapt. Lenny Joseph of Greenole offered a beautiful framing: no man ever enters the same building twice, because the building is different and the occupant is different. Platforms must serve evolving occupants with different roles and needs, not just static control sequences.
The war is not between platforms, but against isolation. Kimon Onuma, the architect on the panel, showed that the PA Living Building had multiple award-winning platforms that could not communicate with each other. His message was clear: the industry must build bridges, not walls. Semantic graphs and open standards are the path to platforms that communicate.
AI is here, but productivity comes first. Dave Molin of Honeywell shared that when his team asked customers what they wanted from AI, the answer was not optimization. It helped improve productivity, reduce labor time, and lower risk in the construction process. The result is AI tools that can save roughly 20 percent of labor time on projects.
Data structure prevents hallucination. John Sublet of Distech Controls made a crucial point about AI: it cannot restore order from chaos. Language models need structure. If we feed them structured data with clear paths, they stop hallucinating and start delivering reliable insights.
Security is the foundation. The panel agreed that without trust in the data, nothing else matters. Authentication, authorization, and AI-driven anomaly detection will work together to ensure that connected systems remain secure even as they become more open.
Customer value beats cool technology. Lenny Joseph drove this home with examples of AI tools that count takeoff items from drawings and generate complete proposals, and facility platforms that cut through alarm fatigue to tell operators what actually needs fixing first. The winning formula is simple: solve real problems.
Digital twins are getting faster and cheaper. Kimon Onuma demonstrated that what took a year with the PA Living Building can now be done in a week. The path to adoption is not perfection, but incremental progress that delivers value at every step.
The Pace of Change is Accelerating
Dave Molin, a 33-year industry veteran, admitted that until two years ago, he thought he had seen everything. He was wrong. The panel left the audience with a clear message: we are in the early innings of a transformation that will redefine what buildings can do. The winners will be those who focus on openness, structure, and real customer outcomes.
