Summary Bullets:

• The impact of IT technologies that are growing beyond IT is staggering and shows the need for advanced test and measurement.

• According to the GlobalData Deal Trends database, there have been over 20 acquisitions in this space since 2020 and numerous asset purchases and partnerships.

For every technology product that comes to market, both hardware and software, there is testing. One of the best ways to see where a market is heading, and what technologies are coming up in the next 4+ years, is to watch the testing market. The software testing market for development and deployment gets a lot of press – mostly because that kind of software testing is part of the production chain both at independent software vendors (ISVs) and in enterprises. However, the broader testing market is where the latest technologies that are not even close to release are being evaluated, where chip designers, chip manufacturers, engineers, and product companies are doing cutting edge research. These test tools can be specialized hardware, software, or both. In addition, many of the largest multinational enterprises use testing tools to validate and tweak advanced designs in their own IT and OT environments. Much of this research is done hand in hand with the testing equipment companies. Keeping an eye on what’s happening in the testing/measurement market shows clearly the investments being made for the future.

In the past, much testing and measurement was done to prove that hardware could operate at advertised speeds under complex workloads. One of the best instances of this was the testing of Ethernet hardware in the early market – fully meshed line rate claims were put to the test and compatibility bake-offs were common. That is just one example of many where testing and measurement was used at the enterprise level and beyond.

The testing and measurement market has been changing for some time. Testing technologies like Ethernet hardware for enterprises is still important but has become more mature along with Ethernet itself. What used to require specialized testing solutions can now be done with open-source software tools and off-the-shelf servers, network interface cards (NICs) and switches from white box vendors. For organizations that don’t want to DIY testing, hardware from test and measurement vendors is available, mostly used by the largest of enterprises.

Today, test and measurement have new frontiers – some of them literally out of this world. Satellite communications, for example, are incredibly complex. Low Earth orbit constellation satellite networks such as Starlink provide broadband connections but also have complex networks of inter-satellite communication. The next generation of cellular technologies, called 6G, requires not only performance and interoperability testing, but also emulation and scenario simulations. The communications systems in cars are changing, many of those to Ethernet, and those systems must be not only environmentally hardened, but secure and reliable, requiring considerable testing by automotive manufacturers. New networks to support AI/ML applications for both training and execution need complex traffic and scenario emulation as well as improvements in bandwidth, such as 1.6TB Ethernet. On top of that, the defense industry has new uses for testing in communications, location, as well as cybersecurity. The impact of IT technologies that are growing beyond IT is staggering and shows the need for advanced test and measurement. This need goes beyond just development and deployment testing – it can also encompass ongoing testing to support existing systems and enhancements.

The companies in this space have the same ups and downs other technology companies have and they must make strategic decisions on where to invest so they are ready to bring the latest technology to market. Some of the important names in testing and measurement in the communications and IT technology space are Keysight, Viavi, National Instruments, and Fortive.

To some, the test and measurement space is going into accelerated consolidation to just a few big vendors. According to the GlobalData Deal Trends database, there have been over 20 acquisitions in this space since 2020 and numerous asset purchases and partnerships. There are larger and smaller test and measurement firms – but if the number of startups, open-source offerings, and the amount of innovation is taken into account, the test and measurement space is simply going through the transitions that every part of the tech market goes through. The need to test the latest technological innovation is simply too widespread for any single company to dominate through buying their way to the top.

Test and measurement companies and solutions can be an important guide for IT leaders to help them predict where the market is going to and even bring in ideas on how they can use some of these technologies in their own IT or OT deployments.