Why go modular in test?

摘要

Part of my role is to evaluate instruments of all kinds for use in the test industry. Increasingly these instruments now have a modular form factor and are all slotted neatly into a PXI chassis and not as separate boxes. This progressive domination of software defined instrumentation has reached a state where I believe, to use a phase from Geoffrey Moore's book; it has "crossed the chasm" and has got me thinking: If I were a test engineer, why would I move to a modular approach, what's wrong with my traditional instruments?