Barco receives second consecutive Silver ITEA Achievement Award

Visualization company Barco has for the second consecutive time been awarded the Silver ITEA Achievement Award for its contribution to an ITEA (Information Technology for European Advancement) project. This year, Barco participated in the winning MARTES software engineering project, which is developing a standard, model-based approach to real-time embedded systems in an era of digital convergence. The MARTES methodology addresses business risks, new system domains and the increasing complexity of embedded systems in order to boost productivity. MARTES involves partners from Belgium, Finland, France, the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden.
 
The ITEA Board granted the 2008 Silver Achievement Award to the MARTES project for its new approach, which enables interoperability between different software engineering and development tools. This major breakthrough will support small European tool providers in expanding the use of their dedicated tools and their customer base – a particular target of the ITEA 2 program.
 
“We are proud that our continued effort, research and quality in the field of embedded software methodology are being acknowledged by ITEA,” says Jean-Christophe Monfret, Barco’s Director Product Management Avionics. “With this new ITEA Silver Achievement Award, we show our continued dedication to technological advancement, quality and increased effort to streamline and shorten our software development cycles. As was the case with last year’s winning AGILE project, MARTES fits perfectly into our strategy to optimize our software development cycle for the aerospace industry. In addition, it will bring significant benefits to customers using our Open System Platforms.”
 
Besides Barco, Belgian laureates also include the DistriNet research group, which is part of the Department of Computer Science of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. Through this consortium, it was proven that the MARTES approach resulted in an innovative integrated process that helps to reduce cost and deployment time, while enhancing performance and other life-cycle aspects. The work done within the MARTES project was supported by IWT-Vlaanderen, which is the Institute for the Promotion of Innovation by Science and Technology in Flanders. IWT-Vlaanderen comes under the auspices of the Flemish Minister of Economics, Entrepreneurship, Science, Innovation and Foreign Trade. As a regional public institution, it stimulates innovation through research and development and through the dissemination of technological know-how in Flanders.
 
More information about MARTES can be found on the MARTES project site (http://www.martes-itea.org/) and the ITEA website (www.itea2.org).

About ITEA
ITEA (Information Technology for European Advancement) brings together partners from large companies, Small & Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs), research institutes and universities in strategic projects. Organizations that participate in ITEA share a vision of how to disseminate digital software technology to improve European competitiveness. Projects build crucial middleware, prepare common standards and establish solid technology platforms, laying the foundation for the next generation of products, systems, appliances and services. This huge effort is supported by close co-operation between European national public authorities, ITEA founding companies, SMEs and start-ups, universities and research institutes.

 
About the DistriNet research group, Department of Computer Science, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
The research group 'Distributed Systems and Computer Networks' (DistriNet, distrinet.cs.kuleuven) is a well-known centre of expertise in Software Technology. It clusters research & development in diverse areas, such as Real-Time Embedded and Ubiquitous Systems, Security, Network Software, Language Technology and Middleware, and Multi-Agent Systems. The available skills cover both fundamental know-how as well as expertise in application driven projects. The domain of innovation and expertise of DistriNet is the architecture, composition and development of open, distributed, flexible and dynamic object-oriented and component-based platforms for advanced software systems, using state-of-the-art software technology.


About Barco
Barco, a global technology company, designs and develops visualization products for a variety of selected professional markets. Barco has its own facilities for Sales & Marketing, Customer Support, R&D and Manufacturing in Europe, North America and Asia Pacific. Barco (NYSE Euronext Brussels: BAR) is active in more than 90 countries with about 3600 employees worldwide. Barco posted sales of euro 747 million in 2007.

For more information, please contact

Sophie Hautekeete
Press & PR EMEA-LATAM
Barco n.v.
Phone:+32 56 36 80 59
sophie.hautekeete@barco.com

 
Inge Govaerts
Corporate Public Relations Manager
Barco n.v.
Phone:+32 56 36 80 52
inge.govaerts@barco.com