Product category: CompactPCI Boards and Assemblies
News Release from: Motorola Embedded Communications Computing Group | Subject: AdvancedTCA platforms
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial Team on 17 March 2005

AdvancedTCA platforms aim for telecomms

Motorola has revealed plans for new products that will help telecomms equipment manufacturers gain the time-to-market and cost advantages of adopting AdvancedTCA at a lower cost of entry

These new application-enabling platforms will support highly scalable deployment models for telecom applications, while helping to preserve important technology investments. 'Original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) want to streamline their supply chains and, where possible, purchase pre-integrated, validated platforms from a smaller number of proven suppliers'.

'Large-scale ATCA system vendors, such as Motorola, are able to participate in the re-engineering of OEM supply chains and are well positioned to meet this need', commented Gabriel Brown, Chief Analyst at Light Reading Insider, an independent telecommunications research service.

'Recent announcements by telecom equipment manufacturers such as Nortel demonstrate that a growing number of OEMs are moving to open standards-based common platforms across their product portfolios', said Wendy Vittori, Corporate Vice President and General Manager, Embedded Communications Computing, Motorola.

'Computing platforms based on AdvancedTCA technology can deliver significant time-to-market, cost and flexibility benefits to both telecom equipment manufacturers and network operators'.

'By having more choices in terms of platform size and level of integration, our customers will be able to address even more telecom applications and help AdvancedTCA achieve the economies of scale necessary to reach its full potential'.

A new family of highly scalable AdvancedTCA low-profile platforms will be launched in calendar Q2 2005 to address cost-sensitive applications.

These platforms will be based on low-profile AdvancedTCA enclosures.

This approach significantly reduces the cost of entry-level products and allows cost-efficient expansion to support a growing customer base, while enabling enhanced levels of service availability to be achieved through shelf-level redundancy.

These new platforms will be pre-integrated and validated by Motorola to deliver the same time-to-market and resource allocation benefits as the company's other application-enabling platforms.

They will use the same blade set, software and system components as Motorola's other AdvancedTCA platforms to provide capex and opex efficiencies throughout the value chain.

'Some applications simply require a smaller platform with fewer blades - for example, a session border controller or network gateway platform', said Chris Williams, Director of Switched Platforms, Embedded Communications Computing, Motorola.

'Other hosted service applications require platforms with a low-cost entry point'.

'Our new platforms will enable services to be delivered cost-efficiently to a small customer base, with the ability to expand as demand grows'.

A new series of advanced integrated platforms to be launched in Q2 2005 will incorporate Motorola HA middleware that implements the Service Availability Forum Application Interface Specification.

The Service Availability (SA) Forum is a group of computer and communications companies that have come together to develop specifications for standard interfaces, which support carrier-grade service availability and application portability between platforms.

'Our strategy is to integrate our SA Forum-compliant HA middleware into Motorola application-enabling platforms and offer it as a stand-alone product that can be integrated into non-Motorola systems', continued Williams.

'Application portability simplifies platform right-sizing and future technology upgrades'.

Functional equivalence between Motorola's current and planned product series will make it easier for customers to migrate between them to meet their business needs.

Helping customers protect their investments is a key part of the company's strategy, so AXP and MXP platforms from Motorola, together with current Centellis and EndurX platforms formerly from Force Computers, will continue to be supported.

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