Chairperson's Message

Lars Johan Larsson
Chief Analyst
Modt AB

It is a great honor and pleasure to welcome you to the first annual European AdvancedTCA/MicroTCA Summit. My personal history in the embedded systems business goes back almost as far as the industry itself.  I remember a meeting in Munich in 1980, where we defined a new bus and finally agreed that VME would be a good name for it.  Since then, I have seen many board standards appear and either stay or vanish. VME is still around and is the usual example of a successful standard. The standards today that get the media attention are AdvancedTCA and MicroTCA.  In fact, one spokesperson called MicroTCA the biggest thing since VME.

Let me point out a way in which Advanced/MicroTCA differ from VME and all other board standards. I have attended many events dedicated to a single board standard or to board standards in general. These events have been enjoyable since you meet many old friends and colleagues.  But one key audience has been missing, namely users. The standards have taken a horizontal market approach. Their proponents have targeted all possible applications in every conceivable industry segment.  As a result, the active supporters of the standards have always consisted of specifiers and implementers. No user category was ever big enough or felt the need to participate. The market for some standards was large, but consisted of many small to medium size customers. All usage of embedded boards was tactical, meaning that customers made their decisions on a project level. They did not consider the technology to be strategic; it was like one’s choice of connectors, cabling, or brackets.

Advanced TCA (Telecommunications Computing Architecture) is different since the name itself indicates the target market.  It has already achieved a different status from any other board standard.  The new feature is that it has become strategic to many major telecom equipment makers (TEMs). The formation of SCOPE is good evidence of this key position. Never before have major TEMs joined together to define and promote a basic system standard. The timing is right for open systems in both software and hardware.

So AdvancedTCA and MicroTCA are not the biggest things in the board business since VME. They are the biggest things – period! . For the first time, there is a complete ecosystem united toward a common goal: specify, implement ,and apply the new technology.

Therefore, the time has come for a European AdvancedTCA/MicroTCA summit. A get-together for the complete ecosystem must include users. The specifiers will be there. This includes SAF, PICMG, CP-TA, and of course the user organization SCOPE. The implementers of components, boards, software, and systems will come. And finally the major users will be present as well. Representatives from Alcatel-Lucent, Nokia Siemens Networks, and Nortel will share their experience with us. They have also promised to be very frank on where there is room for improvement.

Many major TEMs are based in Europe, and the Summit gives them a chance to expose the ecosystem to more of their organizations. The AdvancedTCA/MicroTCA technology is strategic to them.  So project leaders, developers, marketers, and specialists in procurement and other areas must be educated about it.  That is, they must learn about the status of standardization, new technologies, and new products so they can explain the directions to their customers, suppliers, and partners. A Summit also gives them the chance to offer feedback on requirements for implementation of technology and services.

Still another key reason for the event is to allow users that have made a strategic decision in favor of AdvancedTCA/MicroTCA to meet the vendors and encourage them to sustain their investments. The scenario here is the usual one for strategic matters.  Acceptance and implementation may have taken longer than anyone expected, but please keep up the good work because the business rewards are finally starting to appear.

The program will be very extensive. We will have sessions on standardization, economics, hardware, software, COTS ecosystem, infrastructure, and applications in wireless, IMS, and many other fields.

So I am sure you can all understand why I am so delighted to invite you to the European AdvancedTCA/MicroTCA Summit. For the first time in the history of standardized boards we have the chance to create a summit that will be what it should be: A complete ecosystem get-together. Don’t miss it. See you there!

Lars Johan Larsson, Chief Analyst, Modt AB