Profile: National Instruments Corp (Texas) (NATI.O)

National Instruments Corporation, incorporated in May 1976, is a supplier of measurement and automation products that engineers and scientists use in a range of industries. These industries comprise a large and diverse market for design, control and test applications. The Company provides flexible application software, and modular, multi-function hardware that users combine with computers, networks and third-party devices to create measurement, automation and embedded systems, which the Company also refers to as virtual instruments. Its products are designed to work either in an integrated solution or separately, however, customers generally purchase the Company’s software and hardware together. National Instruments Corporation’s application software products include LabVIEW, LabVIEW Real-Time, LabVIEW FPGA, Measurement Studio, LabWindows/CVI, DIAdem, TestStand and Multisim. Its hardware and related driver software products include data acquisition (DAQ); peripheral component interconnect (PCI) extensions for instrumentation (PXI) chassis and controllers; image acquisition; motion control; distributed input/output (I/O), and modular instruments and embedded control hardware/software; industrial communications interfaces; general-purpose interface bus (GPIB) interfaces, and VME extensions for instrumentation (VXI) controllers.

Application Software

The Company’s application software products are integrated with its hardware/driver software. It offers a variety of software products for developing measurement and automation applications to meet the different programming and computer preferences of its customers. LabVIEW, LabWindows/CVI and Measurement Studio are programming environments, with which users can develop graphical user interfaces (GUIs), control instruments, and acquire, analyze and present data. With these software products, users can design custom virtual instruments by creating a GUI on the computer screen, through which they operate the actual program and control selected hardware. Users can customize front panels with knobs, buttons, dials and graphs to emulate control panels of instruments or add custom graphics to visually represent the control and operation of processes. LabVIEW, LabWindows/CVI and Measurement Studio also have ready-to-use libraries for controlling thousands of programmable instruments, including the Company’s hardware products, as well as traditional serial GPIB, VXI, Ethernet and universal serial bus (USB) measurement and automation devices from other vendors.

The principal difference between LabVIEW, LabWindows/CVI and Measurement Studio is in the way users develop programs. With LabVIEW, users program graphically, developing application programs by connecting icons to create block diagrams, which are natural design notations for scientists and engineers. With LabVIEW Real-Time, the user’s application program can be configured to execute using a real-time operating system kernel instead of the Windows operating system, which allows users to build virtual instrument solutions for mission-critical applications that require highly reliable operation. In addition, with LabVIEW Real-Time, users can configure their programs to execute remotely on embedded processors inside PXI systems, on embedded processors inside Fieldpoint distributed I/O systems, or on processors embedded on plug-in personal computer (PC) data acquisition boards.

With LabVIEW FPGA, the user’s application can be configured to execute directly in silicon via a field programmable gate array (FPGA) residing on one of the Company’s reconfigurable I/O hardware products. LabVIEW FPGA allows users to build their own specialized, custom hardware devices for high-performance requirements or for unique or own measurement or control protocols. With LabWindows/CVI, users program using the conventional, text-based language of C. Measurement Studio consists of measurement and automation add-on libraries and additional tools for programmers that use Microsoft’s Visual Basic, Visual C++, Visual C#, and Visual Studio.NET development environments.

National Instruments Corporation offers a software product called TestStand targeted for test and measurement applications in a manufacturing environment. TestStand is a test management environment for organizing, controlling and running automated production test systems on the factory floor. It also generates customized test reports and integrates product and test data across the customers’ enterprise and across the Internet. TestStand manages tests that are written in LabVIEW, LabWindows/CVI, Measurement Studio, C and C++, and Visual Basic, so that test engineers can share and re-use test code throughout their organization and from one product to the next. During the year ended December 31, 2005, the Company acquired Electronics Workbench and its suite of software for electronic design automation. The Electronics Workbench flagship product, Multisim Circuit Simulation Software, is used for electronic circuit design, board layout and electrical engineering training programs by companies and academic institutions, including Sony, Boeing, MIT and DeVry.

Hardware Products and Related Driver Software

The Company’s DAQ hardware and driver software products are instruments-on-a-board that users can combine with sensors, signal conditioning hardware and software to acquire analog data and convert it into a digital format that can be accepted by a computer. It offers a range of computer-based DAQ products, including models for digital, analog and timing I/O, and for transferring data directly to a computer’s random access memory. During 2005, the Company acquired the operating assets of both Measurement Computing and IOtech, two smaller data acquisition companies, whose products complement and extend the Company’s data acquisition offerings, including portable and vibration measurement products.

National Instruments Corporation’s PXI modular instrument platform is a standard PC packaged in a small, rugged form factor with expansion slots and instrumentation extensions. It combines mainstream PC software and PCI hardware with advanced instrumentation capabilities. PXI is an instrumentation PC with several expansion slots that enable the Company to pursue complete system-level opportunities and deliver overall system content using its own products. The Company’s vision software is designed to work with many different software environments, including LabVIEW, LabWindows/CVI, Visual Basic, C, and Measurement Studio. It has expanded its software offering with a menu-driven machine vision software that can run as a standalone vision system. The software can also generate LabVIEW code. The Company has introduced Vision Builder software for automated inspection, and Compact Vision System, which is a small, ruggedized, industrial vision system that can connect up to three IEEE-1394 cameras and is programmed using Vision Builder.

National Instruments Corporation offers a line of motion control hardware, software and peripheral products. This intelligent PC-based motion control hardware is programmable from industry standard development environments, including LabVIEW, LabWindows/CVI and Measurement Studio. The Company’s software tools for motion are integrated with its other product lines, allowing motion to be combined with image acquisition, test, measurement, data acquisition and automation. Its computer-based motion products allow users to leverage standard hardware and software in measurement and automation applications to create robust, flexible solutions.

The Company offers FieldPoint, an intelligent, distributed and modular I/O system, which gives industrial system developers a solution for distributed data acquisition, monitoring and control applications. Suitable for direct connection to industrial signals, FieldPoint includes an array of rugged and isolated analog and digital I/O modules, terminal base options, and network modules. With LabVIEW Real-Time, users can download their LabVIEW code and create networked systems of intelligent, real-time nodes for embedded measurement and control. It has launched Compact FieldPoint, a smaller and even more rugged intelligent distributed I/O product that is also an execution target for LabVIEW Real-Time. The Company has introduced CompactRIO, an advanced embedded control and acquisition system powered by its reconfigurable I/O (RIO) technology. Compact RIO uses LabVIEW Real-Time and LabVIEW FPGA for industrial control, process monitoring and embedded machine applications that require intelligent I/O products with a small form factor, a wide operating temperature, and resistance to shock and vibration.

National Instruments Corporation offers interface boards for communicating with serial devices, such as dataloggers and programmable logic controllers (PLCs) targeted for industrial automation (IA) applications, and benchtop instruments, such as oscilloscopes, targeted for time and measurement applications. The Company offers hardware and driver software product lines for communication with industrial devices, which include Controller Area Network (CAN), DeviceNet, Foundation Fieldbus, and RS-485 and RS-232.

The Company is a supplier of GPIB interface boards and driver software to control traditional GPIB instruments. These traditional instruments are manufactured by a variety of third-party vendors and are used primarily in time and measurement applications. Its diverse portfolio of hardware and software products for GPIB instrument control is available for a range of computers. The Company’s GPIB product line also includes products for portable computers, such as a PC memory card (PCMCIA)-GPIB interface card, and products for controlling GPIB instruments using the computer’s standard parallel, USB, IEEE 1394 (Firewire), Ethernet and serial ports. National Instruments Corporation is a supplier of VXI computer controller hardware and the accompanying NI-VXI and NI-VISA driver software. It also offers LabVIEW, LabWindows/CVI, Measurement Studio and TestStand software products for VXI systems.

Customer Training Courses

The Company offers fee-based training classes and self-paced course kits for many of its software and hardware products. Onsite courses are quoted per customer requests. It also offers programs to certify programmers and instructors for its products.

The Company competes with Agilent Technologies Inc.