The VDC report analyzed vertical markets that include:
- Communications
- Military/aerospace
- Transportation
- Industrial automation & control
- Medical
- Laboratory/scientific
In terms of marketshare, "merchant" providers -- suppliers of standard or customized product available on the open market -- will win only 0.3 percent additional share of the overall EICS market from "captive" providers, a category representing both internally and externally manufactured equipment based on in-house designs.

Total Market for Embedded Integrated Computer Systems, 2005 and 2010
Percentage Share of Total Available Market
(Click to enlarge; source: VDC)
Given widespread marketing efforts around standards such as AdvancedTCA, the apparently slow rate of change toward commercial, COTS systems may surprise some. However, VDC notes that the embedded market's relatively low volumes and long product lifecycles make it much less dynamic than, for example, the PC market. Additionally, the research firm notes, "Interoperability is always a concern for embedded customers switching from proprietary architectures to standardized architectures."
Additional details regarding VDC's latest EICS report, "Embedded Integrated Computer Systems, 5th Edition," can be found
here.
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