Mike Attar, Ixia's senior director of investor relations, says there "simply wasn't the demand we had anticipated" for the CMC and Dilithium test tools -- CMC didn't deliver because "people have a lot of WLAN access points but customers don't end up testing them," while Dilithium's tools were designed to test video over circuit-switched mobile networks, and the demand now is for mobile IP video test capabilities.

    The company's wireless focus, instead, is on IP developments in 3G networks and IMS, adds Attar.

    Vic Alston, Ixia's senior VP of product development, says those were "good products to dip our toes into the wireless test area." Now the strategy is to find wireless test capabilities that can be integrated onto Ixia's common test platform, and tackle the 3G market from that perspective.

    "We're interested in getting more technology onto our shared platform, and we've acquired some intellectual property, that we haven't announced, to add 3G and 4G testing capabilities. And we're on the look out for more acquisitions to gain more market and customer exposure" in that sector, where Ixia is looking to develop test capabilities that vendors can use to put their wireless IP products, such as GGSNs (Gateway GPRS Support Nodes) and SGSNs (Serving GPRS Support Nodes), through their paces in the lab.

    As for IMS, Ixia is building some capabilities using technology it inherited as part of its February 2004 acquisition of VOIP performance and conformance test technology startup G3 NOVA Technology, which cost $9.1 million. (See Ixia Acquires G3 Nova for VOIP.)

    Those capabilities are being integrated onto Ixia's common platform just now and the resulting IMS test capabilities will become commercially available during the current quarter, having been pre-announced earlier this year, says Alston. (See Ixia Tests IMS, VOIP.)