Joel Deer

With the country going through a major recession, everyone is getting tight on their spending. Telecom companies are no exception.  All of the technology extras and whiz-bang features yet to be developed are being pushed out more because the once deep R&D pockets are barely deep enough now to hold water.  One technology that seems to keep being pushed back is AdvancedTCA.  The numbers projected were, and still today, are staggering for this COTS solution that was developed by only a small consortium of companies.  The goal was to open up the hardware footprint and allow for end-customers to pick the best solution for their needs while getting the costs down in the process.  You now have tons of options to pick from which will eliminate vendor lock-in issues.  The problem is, hardware isn’t cheap.  Manufacturing can be sent overseas to help lower that development cost but aren’t you then lowering the quality of the product which isn’t what the Telco NEBS environment needs for reliability.

I believe that this large “cost control” myth is one reason that AdvancedTCA hasn’t boomed as fast as some people had predicted.  (Note: those predicting this boom are the very ones getting paid to promote that future take off.)  Many of the smaller end-customers that begin looking in to AdvancedTCA hardware for their solutions soon realize that for the simple applications, this open blade system may be a costly overkill.  Does that mean there isn’t a good, solid market for AdvancedTCA?  No, that’s not what I’m saying.  My point is that many larger companies that jumped on the early AdvancedTCA standard to provide their board solutions have now gotten out because they realize this to be the case.  They simply can’t make the numbers add up to justify their participation with everything else they are having to battle.  That has helped to push back the timeline for the mass riches of AdvancedTCA and also lowered the numbers some too.  But this exodus is good for companies like Diversified Technology Inc., who with our 37 year embedded history are in tight for the long haul with PICMG (www.picmg.org) standards like AdvancedTCA.  So, much like the smaller banks who are now taking advantage of these tough economic times, DTI is doing the same.

Joel Deer
Marketing Communications