As a Canadian who has been listening to the "51st state" wordvomit coming out of US administration your comment is very apt.
For some reason I can't fully grasp, a LOT of US citizens are ignorant to how the rest of the world is perceiving them at the current moment. There's countless US articles talking about US/Canada relations as if it is a trade dispute and that they think Canadians are eager to re-unite and go back to the way things were without ever addressing the threats to our sovereignty. Then you have comments like the parent to your post who is....wildly off the mark thinking that in a point of contention we'd prefer to keep our data on US controlled systems because their government would need to follow their own legal processes to acquire data of a foreign/hostile state??????
And yeah, there's crossover but they're not 1 to 1. At the same time, if a company is taking two people of equal position and firing one, or keeping the other, the honesty in how they came to that conclusion through transparency has value. Was the decision one of seniority? Performance? Geographical relevance? Was it favoritism masked in another reason? The person receiving the pink slip deserves to know the truth, especially in cases where legal matters could be of question where a company may say one thing, but be acting on another.
Aside from whatever modern screens become I can't see control rooms changing too much from where they are currently. What is likely to change is how equipment is approached within the field which may mean less reliance on control rooms in general.
What I mean is, imagine a Google Glass style augmented reality goggle on your operators. As they walk the plant they can look at a process system and up blips the efficiency/product/status info in real time. If that guy is out there for maintenance he'd see the time since last fault, reason for fault, downtime, and whatever else you'd call relevant all in front of his eyes instead of having to radio with the controls operator for info.
Generally not in my experience. Things are still heavily driven from SCADA/HMI systems because its just economical to drop a PC in and be virtually future proof to whatever changes you make at your plant.
I've been part of a few jobs that have panels similar to what you're discussing but my presence there is to make sure the 3rd party builder signs off then we immediately bypass the panel's physical controls with a PLC+HMI system for the client. (Fertilizer blending system)
On the flip side I actually liked it. I'm a FF user, and in the instant it clicked my first thought was "damn, I need chrome."
Options aren't a bad thing. Android offers multiple keyboards for people who find one method of typing more efficient/comfortable than others. I don't see any downsides to it because everyone gets what they want without forcing anyone to conform to a model they don't like.
For some reason I can't fully grasp, a LOT of US citizens are ignorant to how the rest of the world is perceiving them at the current moment. There's countless US articles talking about US/Canada relations as if it is a trade dispute and that they think Canadians are eager to re-unite and go back to the way things were without ever addressing the threats to our sovereignty. Then you have comments like the parent to your post who is....wildly off the mark thinking that in a point of contention we'd prefer to keep our data on US controlled systems because their government would need to follow their own legal processes to acquire data of a foreign/hostile state??????