But McKee Foods still uses Oracle for its financial system, and Oracle, it turns out, has acquired the software firms McKee uses for manufacturing.

FORBES: Return of Dave

By providing this secure environment for multiple silicon, software and device manufacturing partners, the joint venture will enable greater operational efficiency across the ecosystem and the industry as a whole.

ENGADGET: ARM seeks better security for connected devices, teams up with Gemalto and Giesecke & Devrient

One of the volunteers was Ali Amirnazmi, an Iranian-born Stanford-educated chemical engineer who had developed powerful software, which he sold by subscription, for strategic planning in the chemical manufacturing industries.

FORBES: Meet Iran's Ambassador to the UN

Take, for example, a manufacturing organization trying to build the business case to invest in implementing software to track their internal carbon footprint.

FORBES: InfosysVoice: Internally or externally, the environment figures in a business plan

For example, a lot of critical infrastructure and manufacturing processes use supervisory, control and data acquisition software (SCADAS) that, as it turns out, have lots of security holes.

FORBES: Increased Computerization Means Increased Vulnerability