Nola Power Factor Controller

Hello everyone,

There are apparently many companies advertising on energy savings via Nola type power factor controllers. While Mark's article( http://www.lmphotonics.com/energy.htm ) was quite enlightening on their efficiency, my question comes like this:

Do you think there is any way of making power factor controller A(working on this principle) much more efficient then power factor controller B? Basically, there are those who advertise on the energy saving part of their soft starters(a la Somar, Enigin and such), those that mention they have some form of power controller embedded in their soft starter(for instance Fairford mentions their Nola algorithm implementation on their "about us" page) and those that have this thing embedded, but they don't even bother to mention it(someone said in another thread ABB provides a a la Nola power factor controller on their soft starter, but they don't even mention this in their presentation).

Basically, do you think there's any chance that, let's say Somar's soft starter has a "better"(in the lack of a better word) implementation of the Nola algorithm then, let's say, the ABB soft starter does?(seems SF given ABB's reputation, but...)
I mean, even if we're talking about applications like http://www.lmpforum.com/inforum/Power-Fact...ollers-t23.html, where in post #2 an application doing a switch between offload and full load in 1/150th of a second is mentioned, making a controller which is able to dynamically monitor and react seems pretty easy(even if my experience with micro chips and automatizing things is rather limited, yet, at least from a programming point of view the application seems so trivial that if leaves little to no room for much "optimization" - but while I understand the simplicity of the algorithm, I don't have anywhere near enough knowledge of the hardware involved, so I know nothing of the limitation put on by the physical components).

I'm asking this because my previous experience with Somar's products was good in my country(the unit managed to reduce kWhr significantly - kWhr, not something else) and while I understand the customer would be better off buying a more modern motor, I'm 100% sure it's much easier to market/sell overpriced black boxes then more efficient motors(people, for some odd reason, seem to love black boxes over here and my interest is to provide a functional product, not necessarily the best solution - especially if the best solution is a marketing nightmare - but a viable solution). Is there any possibility that Somar's implementation is better, or I'd simply provide the same thing that other companies provide with the drawback that I'd have to do a big upfront payment and no brand awareness behind to back me up?

Thanks alot