Recently, Venture Development Corporation (VDC) conducted a study and evaluation of the present and future market for COTS merchant computer boards, systems, and software in North American and Western European military and defense. This examination concentrated on merchant products; those that are sold individually on the open market, but excluded deeply embedded equipment that is task, application, and customer-specific. Captive or internal sales, as well as general-purpose and enterprise-class equipment, were also excluded from the study.
This article presents some of the findings contained in the report.