3:10 PM -- SAN JOSE, Calif -- Sneak peek: Heavy Reading is predicting the ATCA market will reach $7.2 billion by 2012.

That's one of the conclusions in a report that's due out soon. Analyst Simon Stanley debuted the numbers during the opening session of ATCA, AMC & MicroTCA: Off-the-Shelf Platforms for the Converged IP Network, the Light Reading day-long event happening right now.

The market really starts to take off later in 2009, a reflection of the fact that ATCA is being applied to new applications, the kind that won't see heavy volume this year. Stanley is predicting a healthy ramp-up once things get going, to that $7.2 billion figure.

Stanley is counting application-ready ATCA systems -- that is, the value of the type of system Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU) or Nortel Networks Ltd. would buy. Other studies, he says, have counted up the total end value of ATCA systems, measuring the products AlcaLu or Nortel would sell.



— Craig Matsumoto, West Coast Editor, Light Reading