Innovation global virtual instrumentation pioneer marks major company milestones in 2006
The year 2006 marks two major milestones for virtual instrumentation pioneer National Instruments, including its 30th year since inception and 20th year since the creation of NI Labview, the company's flagship graphical programming software.
Founded in Austin, Texas, in 1976 by Jeff Kodosky, Bill Nowlin and James Truchard, National Instruments pioneered the concept of virtual instrumentation - combining open, flexible software and modular hardware with commercial off-the-shelf technologies - to offer engineers and scientists a user-defined approach to creating more efficient and customisable software.
A key component to the concept of virtual instrumentation is Labview software which, during the past 20 years, has evolved from a desktop instrument control and data acquisition tool into an integrated design, control and test platform for desktop, industrial, embedded and handheld applications.
During the past three decades, National Instruments has grown into a global company with more than 3800 employees, and it maintains an award-winning culture that holds innovation and a challenging, fun work environment as keys to its success.
In the company's early days, all NI employees could fit into one room to hear directly from Truchard.
Today, this 'sneaker management' philosophy remains woven into the company's culture of having fun, maintaining open communication and sharing in the team's success.
National Instruments has been named among Fortune's Top 100 Best Companies to Work For for seven years, while continuing to drive innovation in offering engineers and scientists around the world high-quality applications.
"Although we celebrate our successes every year and are continually looking for ways to drive our innovation forward, this year is the perfect opportunity to look back over the past three decades and celebrate how far we've come," said James Truchard, NI president and CEO.
"I am especially proud of the corporate culture that all our employees work together daily to perpetuate - an environment where hard work is rewarded but fun, creativity and teamwork are encouraged just as strongly.
"I look forward to seeing where the next three decades will take the global National Instruments family and how virtual instrumentation will continue to impact our industry".
First released in 1986, the National Instruments revolutionary software product Labview challenged traditional approaches to programming with intuitive graphical development similar to flowcharting.
Created by NI cofounder Jeff Kodosky, Labview helps engineers and scientists in diverse industries to quickly produce a wide range of applications.
National Instruments recently released Labview 8, a new version of the software that dramatically simplifies the development of distributed systems by delivering distributed intelligence, a collection of technologies that simplify the development of processes running across applications and among remote devices.
Labview 8 also includes significant additions for mathematics, signal processing and analysis.
"With built-in compatibility for thousands of I/O devices and instruments; an extensive library of analysis, signal processing and control algorithms, and intuitive data visualisation and user interface tools, Labview empowers scientists and engineers to quickly design, prototype and deploy," said Kodosky, commonly known as the 'Father of Labview'.
"For 20 years, Labview graphical development has revolutionised the way thousands of engineers and scientists work, providing improved product quality, shorter time to market and greater engineering and manufacturing efficiency.
"With a flexible, open platform, Labview continues to deliver productivity to engineers and scientists facing increasingly complex application needs."
