VDC Research Group announced the winners of its 2008 “Platinum and Gold” awards, which rate the non-product characteristics of computer board vendors targeting embedded systems. The Embedded Board Vendor Awards draw from user ratings of issues such as price, availability/delivery, technical support, and reliability, says the research group.

The ratings are awarded annually, as part of VDC's annual “Merchant Computer Boards for Embedded/Real-time Applications” research report. The report delves into the markets for “slot” style single-board computers, embedded motherboards, mezzanine cards, computer-on-modules (COMs), and PC/104 stackable modules, VDC said.

Although most of the vendors remained the same as those from the last VDC Awards that we covered — VDC's 2006 awards — several vendors have changed from Platinum to Gold and vice versa. Meanwhile, newcomers include Eurotech on the Platinum list, and ACS Motion Control, Data Translation, Emerson Network Power, EMTrust, Octagon Systems, and RadiSys on the Gold list.

The Platinum and Gold board-vendor ratings are entirely based on user feedback, entered into an “impartial, proprietary” model, says VDC. The process of generating the ratings was as follows:

• Users identify their most important non-product vendor evaluation criteria
  • created from a list of over 45 selection criteria
  • included elements such as availability/delivery, price, reliable/long product life, and a variety of service and support factors
• Users identified 1-5 vendors from whom they had purchased merchant computer boards
• Vendors were rated on the same non-product criteria, on a scale of one to five

As part of this process, VDC produced a list of the top 15 “non-product selection criteria” that were most often selected by participants in the survey. These, according to VDC, were ranked as follows, in order of the most selected features:

1. Price
2. Availability/delivery
3. Technical support
4. Experience/relationship with vendor
5. Reliable, long-lived products
6. Longevity in business
7. General service and support
8. Programming support
9. Post sales support
10. Meets delivery schedules
11. Supports an industry standard
12. Brand name
13. Few changes or revisions to product
14. Maintenance support
15. Prompt response to inquiries

After generating the above list of priorities, VDC says, it “aggregated and appropriately weighted [this data] to reflect the relative importance of the various criteria, and a score was generated for each embedded vendor.” Vendors that scored in the top 5 percent were awarded “Platinum” status, and those that scored in the next highest 10 percent vendors received “Gold” status.

And the winners are…

Platinum awards went to 10 companies:

• Eurotech
• JK Microsystems
• Kontron
• Measurement Computing
• National Instruments
• RTD Embedded Technologies
• Themis Computer
• Trenton Technologies
• VersaLogic
• WinSystems

And, 20 Gold ratings were awarded to:

• ACS Motion Control
• Concurrent Technologies
• Connect Tech
• Curtiss Wright Controls
• Data Translation
• Diamond Systems
• Digital-Logic
• Diversified Technology
• Emerson Network Power
• EMTrust
• GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms
• General Standards
• LiPPERT Embedded Computers
• Mercury Computer Systems
• Microbus Group
• Octagon Systems
• Performance Technologies
• Portwell
• RadiSys
• Supermicro Computer

Availability

More information on VDC Research Group and its “Merchant Computer Boards for Embedded/Real-time Applications” report may be found here.

 
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