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Azimuth Closes 2010 with Another Year of Record-Breaking Growth
ACTON, MA – January 17, 2011 – Azimuth Systems, Inc., a leading provider of wireless broadband test equipment and channel emulators, today announced the company’s record-breaking performance for 2010. Azimuth achieved industry-leading performance in all financial categories, including 140% year-over-year bookings growth for the ACE MX wireless channel emulator and another full year of profitability. The company’s performance numbers are particularly notable as they were achieved during a year of global economic uncertainty and intense competition.
Azimuth’s results were principally achieved through increased sales of its award-winning ACE™ MX MIMO channel emulator to LTE/LTE-Advanced, WiMAX and 2G/3G infrastructure and mobile equipment vendors, semiconductor designers, and service providers worldwide, and its application in Azimuth’s new Field-to-Lab™ (FTL) test solution.
Azimuth’s Field-to-Lab Solution enables real-world radio signal measurements collected from drive testing to be replayed in the customer’s network test bed with the ACE MX MIMO channel emulator. By utilizing actual channel conditions, customers can validate or benchmark pre-deployment mobile device performance and/or recreate network trouble spots/conditions for analysis and resolution. Azimuth’s Field-to-Lab is the only solution in the marketplace that offers full end-to-end automation, and mobile network operators, smartphone and infrastructure vendors are already reducing costs and time to market, while improving the quality of products, using Field-to-Lab. Several additional global players are discovering the value of the Azimuth Field-to-Lab Solution through ongoing trials.
“Azimuth is very excited about its delivery of another record-breaking year of financial performance and the launch of our successful Field-to-Lab Solution. The company has continued to build market leadership and expand its customer base in spite of a particularly challenging environment,” said Jim Iuliano, president and CEO of Azimuth Systems. “As we move into 2011, Azimuth will continue to fuel further global expansion and growth for the ACE MX wireless channel emulator and Field-to-Lab products. Additionally, Azimuth will focus on creating and delivering innovative, market-leading solutions that provide much tighter correlation between laboratory results and expected field performance, enabling customers to rapidly deliver high-quality products that will operate as expected in the field.”
An example of such a solution to be launched in 2011 is Azimuth’s Over-the-Air (OTA) Device Test Solution. The Azimuth OTA Device Test Solution provides a unique and cost-effective laboratory test environment where radio signals are delivered, over-the-air, to a wireless device, such as handset or tablet, inside an RF isolation chamber. The highly automated OTA Device Test Solution supports SISO, but more importantly, MIMO OTA testing. With the rapid proliferation of 4G MIMO devices, there is a strong market requirement for an innovative test solution that can achieve precise MIMO device performance testing and that can accurately predict device performance in the field.
The modularity of Azimuth’s solutions gives users the power and flexibility to perform holistic real-world testing by combining solutions. Playback files produced in the FTL solution can be utilized in the OTA Device Test Solution, creating deeper cross-solution synergies and more realistic testing. Azimuth will continue to build and optimize such capabilities in 2011.
In terms of customer growth, Azimuth’s customer base now includes all of world’s leading infrastructure vendors and the company has made substantial inroads into the mobile device, operator and semiconductor market segments. New customer wins in 2010 included Deutsche Telekom AG Germany, Huawei, Hydro Quebec, LG-Ericsson, MindTree, Southern Methodist University, Sequans Communications and ZTE.
The market strength of the Azimuth ACE MX MIMO channel emulator was further validated in 2010 by the receipt of Test and Measurement World’s 2010 Best in Test Award in the Wireless Test category. The award honors important and innovative new products and services in the electronics test and measurement industry that demonstrate superior technical innovation in the marketplace. In addition, Azimuth’s Field-to-Lab Test Solution was recently named a finalist for the 2011 Best in Test Award that will be announced in April of 2011. Also, the ACE MX channel emulator was selected as a finalist in the Best Network/Device Testing Product for the LTE category of the 2010 Informa Telecoms & Media LTE North America awards.
Azimuth also marked 2010 by continued active participation in the global wireless industry. Azimuth launched of a series of beamforming seminars in China, Europe and North America to educate customers about beamforming testing requirements and the ACE MX channel emulator’s support of these needs for TD-LTE and WiMAX testing. In addition, Azimuth presented details of its new MIMO OTA test methodology at the 2010 Global Mobile Congress & 4G Research Summit and presented relevant papers/presentations at the LTE World Summit and IWPC’s Mobile Device Workshop. Azimuth continues to be an active contributor to 3GPP standards activities, particularly in the definition of MIMO OTA testing, and is participating in 3GPP/CTIA HSPA+ and LTE device round robin testing.