Cleveland, OH — Aug 25, 2003
Venture Development Corporation, an independent market research and consulting firm, has named its year 2003 "Platinum" and "Gold" vendor rating awards in the PC/104 Family Modules product category, including PC/104 and PC/104-Plus.
Year 2003 awards have previously been issued in the Single Board Computer and Embedded Motherboard product categories. These PC/104 Family awards complete the series.
These rankings comprise a portion of VDC's market research into these categories of merchant computer boards for embedded and real-time applications. Ratings were derived through the use of an impartial model, proprietary to VDC. This model took into account such factors as breadth of product line, online resources, trade association membership, ISO certification, etc., as well as user perceptions.
Users were first asked, through an online survey, to identify those non-product criteria that they considered most important in evaluating a vendor. These criteria included elements such as availability and delivery, price, and a variety of service and support factors. User respondents were then asked to name up to five vendors from whom they had purchased various types of merchant computer boards, and to rate each of these vendors on the same non-product criteria on a scale of one to four. This data was then aggregated and appropriately weighted to reflect the relative importance of the various criteria, combined with other data as indicated above, and entered into the model.
"Platinum" status was awarded to the 5% of VDC-identified vendors in each product category that achieved the highest numerical value from the execution of the model. "Gold" status was awarded to the next 10% of these vendors. The model was adjusted and executed separately for each product category.
"Platinum" and "Gold" PC/104 Family vendors are as follows, listed alphabetically within the two award classes:
VDC 2003 "Platinum" and "Gold" PC/104 Family Vendors
Digital-Logic AG
RTD Embedded Technologies, fka Real Time Devices USA
VersaLogic Corp.
WinSystems, Inc.
Advantech Co., Ltd.
Ampro Computers, Inc.
Arcom, Inc.
Diamond Systems Corp.
Embedded Planet LLC
General Standards Corp.
Kontron AG
Micro/sys, Inc.
parvus Corp.
"Because the model was heavily weighted toward user perception of non-product vendor selection criteria, those achieving Platinum or Gold status may feel comfortable that their firms are highly regarded in these respects by their customers," said Eric Gulliksen, Practice Director of Venture Development's Embedded Hardware Research Group. "Other vendors may wish to pay more attention to these factors."
VDC congratulates these winners on a job well done.
ABOUT THE STUDY
This is part of a yearlong planning service "Year 2002-2003 Planning Service on Computers in Embedded and Real-Time Applications" which has the following deliverable reports:
Volume I: Embedded CPU Boards
Volume II: Next-Generation Platforms
Volume III: Utility and I/O Cards
Volume IV: Mezzanine Cards
Volume V: PC/104, PC/104-Plus Cards
Volume VI: Embedded CPUs and Chipsets
Volume VII: Global Embedded Market Overview and Outlook
Prices for the reports or report sections range from US$ 3,000 to US$ 36,200 for the entire service.
Major emphasis is placed on gathering data directly from decision makers at vendors that make these products, and firms that purchase the products. Extensive interviewing is done with both the vendors and users. In addition, an extensive mail survey is conducted with users whose names are obtained from their having attended related trade shows and by subscribing to appropriate trade journals.
This data is supplemented by secondary research for relevant information in technical and business literature, as well as government, trade association, professional society, corporate and industry reports.
Founded in 1971, VDC is a technology market research and consulting firm that specializes in industrial and commercial electronics, computing, communications, software and power systems markets.
To view the entire press release go to: http://www.vdc-corp.com/embedded/press/03/pr03-60.html