The rapidly-growing market for “computer-on-module” (COM) embedded boards increasingly is dominated by several “major” open standard formats, Venture Development Corp (VDC) reports. Open, standardized architectures such as ETX and COM Express are perceived as offering greater flexibility and capability than the proprietary formats that launched the COM market, VDC says.

According to VDC, the major open architecture COM standards — ETX, COM Express, DIMM-PC, and SOM-144 — accounted for 65 percent of the $109 million COM market in 2005. This year, VDC expects the standard architectures to take 70 percent of a $163 million market. Proprietary formats are expected to see a growth rate of 27.7 percent over the 2005 to 2007 period, but that is overshadowed by an expected 61.1 percent growth in the standard architecture realm.

Open COM architectures market share history, forecast
(Click for larger view; Source: VDC)
VDC attributes the rapid growth rate of open architecture modules to the success of recent standards such as ETX and COM Express that “address the requirements of users, while also achieving widespread acceptance.”

According to VDC, prior to the emergence of ETX and COM Express as widespread standards, the COM market “stumbled a bit” due to confusion created by the proliferation of numerous, incompatible form-factors. “It appears that much of this is on the way to sorting itself out and the COMs market will be able to continue its healthy rate of growth,” VDC said.

Further information on the COM market is available in the recently released third volume of VDC's “Global Market Analysis of Merchant Computer Boards for Embedded & Real-Time Applications.”

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