RapidIO Connections - May 2004
Executive Director Update, February 2005
February 18, 2005
I will remember this February for a number of reasons, some good – and some not so good. First of all, we were shocked to hear of John Metz’s very serious illness. For those of you who do not know John, he is a top industry analyst who understands the significance of RapidIO technology. I know you will all join me in sending him our best wishes during these very difficult times. For those wishing to deliver a personal message to John, a link to a visitor guest book has been posted in the member area of our website, http://www.rapidio.org/members. Second, is the NHL. I know that some of you share my passion for ice hockey and enjoying watching star players perform at their peak in an environment of teamwork and cooperation. Unfortunately, these key elements will be missing for quite some time as the current NHL trade dispute continues with apparently no hope for resolving their very different, philosophical approaches. Fortunately, teamwork and cooperation are the hallmarks of the RapidIO member companies and each of you continues to be an inspiration to me by showing what can be achieved by a community working together for a common goal. Recent examples come to mind… At a TWG weekly conference call, this teamwork was both delightful and impressive to see. We are fortunate to have a talented group of individuals from numerous, different companies, all working together seamlessly towards the common goal of establishing RapidIO as the premier high-performance embedded interconnect technology. And, the effort is starting to show tangible results! The MWG is also very active with a new MarCom working group meeting every Tuesday, in addition to the usual Thursday MWG meeting. Not only are they working hard to support new product announcements from member companies, but they are putting together an aggressive marketing program to support our vision of “The Year of RapidIO”. The Customer Event planning group is participating in yet another weekly phone meeting to plan more "Top 10 Customer Events" at individual customer sites. New from this team for 2005, is a series of regional events, starting in Boston, Massachusetts. These events, for the first time, will have a more traditional conference format with three parallel tracks of public paper presentations. They serve as another example of our community reaching a new level of maturity. If you have not yet submitted your paper, now is the time! Well done to everybody on those teams. In January, the RTA had a tabletop display at the Bus and Boards Conference in Long Beach, California and I made my speaking debut as Executive Director. At the event, it was evident that there is a strong focus on VME based systems and the military market. This conference is especially well known for attracting many of the top analysts and reporters in the industry and I was pleased to be able to sit down with many of them during the scheduled activities, as well as in some more informal surroundings. Ensuring that RapidIO is in the hearts and minds of these influential people, is a key activity for me and I am delighted to welcome Bonnie Quintanilla and Phyllis Grabot, the two principles of Corridor Communications, who, in January, agreed to become PR Counsel for the RTA. If your company has any RapidIO activities or announcements going on in 2005, be sure to let Corridor Communications know. They are able to enter into non-disclosure agreements with your company if necessary. Tundra and Mercury also had a visible presence at the conference, and presented an excellent workshop on RapidIO. There was a high level of interest in sRIO but I was constantly challenged to “show me the products!" Fortunately, the start of a flood of announcements is underway, with three of our member companies announcing their new RapidIO products supporting serial RapidIO. Tundra announced an sRIO switch, Texas Instruments announced its new DSP with RapidIO and Mercury announced its new Ensemble2 ATCA development platform. These announcements are exactly what the market has been waiting for and I expect that each successive announcement will build an unstoppable momentum through the course of the year for RapidIO technology. This month I will be participating in the TI developer conference in Houston, Texas, and then travelling to Longmont, Colorado, for our face-to-face meetings which Xilinx is hosting. I am absolutely delighted to report that 56 of you have made the extra effort to be there, which is yet another sign of the momentum that is building within the RapidIO community. Speaking of face-to-face meetings, it is never too early to mark your calendar for the date of the Q2 event which is being hosted by Texas Instruments and will be held on May 24 and 25th in Nice, France, demonstrating the international scope of our membership and our market. Before anyone gets the wrong impression, I have already booked my flight from Canada at a very reasonable price of under $800 Canadian and TI has booked a block of rooms for us at the very reasonable price of around €100! So, keep checking in to the member section of the RapidIO website for advanced registration information at http://www.rapidio.org/members. Considering all of the excellent activities and events which are being planned for the next few months, I really should be grateful that the NHL season has been cancelled because now I will have the time and energy to focus on enjoying a wonderfully successful 2005: The Year of RapidIO! Iain Scott, Executive Director |
