Hardware Obsolescence - EOL

Life these days is very dynamic, nothing is guaranteed anymore, as we all know. The days of a job for life are well and truly gone... Bigger companies keep acquiring smaller companies and as a result people and products get canned, which is bad news for everyone.

So I have been looking at legacy hardware problems in the market place, knowing that most of the electronic board suppliers, well at least the MIL AERO companies that I worked for, typically would not offer to provide new software, but normally insisted that you, the customer, rewrite your software for the new hardware, which will most likely be End Of Life in another FIVE years!

As we all know in the software world, changing software means extra cost in resource to design, implement and test. It's possible with a safety critical system that some certification effort will be needed, which is very costly, all for a board costing a few $1,000 dollars...

Sound Familiar?

What's the answer?
Next I'll talk about some cost effective answers to these legacy issues.