One of the first market studies I worked on when I started at VDC over 13 years ago was to co-author VDC's The U.S. Market for Data Acquisition Products: External Chassis and Modules and Plug-In Analog I/O Boards market report.
Although VDC only just recently launched our extensive web survey in support of VDC's 2011 Data Acquisition Solutions Market Intelligence Program I am already wondering if users will be telling us they want their DAQ solution packaged in a smaller foot print, with faster speeds, higher resolution, be easier to use, provide greater mobility or portability and/or will they want it connected via an Ethernet based networks and/or a wireless network. I suspect a sizable share of users may be still be using serial or parallel networks and I am sure USB will be quite popular.
I cannot lie and say that I would be surprised if users want all the above feature sets and they will want it cheaper as I recall seeing this play out in the past. For some reason I cannot help but think of a soap opera when I think of trends in data acquisition solutions, but maybe it is just me.
Although there are a myriad of applications for which users choose to invest in a data acquisition solution (DAQ) - be it a paperless recorder, a PC front end, a stand alone DAQ system or plug-in analog I/O board using PCI, CompactPCI or some other bus architecture - there are some things that almost all of these users will likely share in common. What will be particularly interesting to learn is what are the applications in which data acquisition solutions are being utilized? What is the current level of satisfaction, or lack thereof, with current offerings? What tradeoffs do customers make if no one solution can offer it all? These, any many other perplexing, questions will be on my mind over the next several months.
I guess we will have to wait for the survey results to roll in before I can provide anything here beyond my own perceptions. Something tells me though that I will learn much more about the changing landscape that comprises this fragmented data acquisition solutions landscape, and the myriad of applications for which these various solutions were designed to serve, than I ever could have imagined.
We welcome the feedback of users, specifiers and other stakeholders that make up the diverse ecosystem of data acquisition solutions and the myriad of applications. Please click here to partake in the survey or forward the link along to others you think can share their preferences, requirements and purchase plans for their data acquisition solutions.
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