Industry electronic professionals engaged with Keysight technical experts and executives, plus viewed live demonstrations May 14 in San Francisco for the first ever Keysight World Americas event. Keysight is hosting these one day events around the world with upcoming events in Shanghai, Taipei, Tokyo, Penang, Singapore, Bangkok, Seoul, Bangalore and New Delhi. The Keynote speakers included Ron Nersesian, President and Chief Executive Officer, Jay Alexander, CTO, and guest Guy Kawasaki, Chief Evangelist at Canva. Keysight discussed their strategy to become a software focused company concentrating on customer solutions. They made two of strategic changes including changing the organization to a market focused company (rather than product focused) and acquiring companies that filled any voids they had in delivering complete solutions to these markets. Some of the major acquisitions included Ixia and Anite to give them more system wide solutions to the telecom and data markets.

Guy Kawasaki, of course, gave some practical advice about presentations and engagement. He presented his 10, 20, 30 rule: 10 slides, 20 minutes and 30 point font slides plus always use a black background for a more professional and edgy look.

There were 5 parallel technical tracks representing the market focused areas that Keysight addresses with their solutions:

• 5G
• Automotive and Energy
• Data Center and Telecom
• Network Operations and Security
• Advanced Measurements

I liked their 5G slide that summarized the deployments to date that are planned to show how fast the technology is being deployed.

There were two product announcements for the day which were very interesting for the RF/microwave engineers. The first was an optional S93070xB Modulation Distortion application for the company's PNA-X Vector Network Analyzer that delivers a wide system dynamic range resulting in the lowest possible residual error vector magnitude (EVM). The new S93070xB Modulation Distortion application, which is fully integrated with Keysight's PNA-X Vector Network Analyzer, enables designers to accurately, repeatably and quickly characterize the behavior of a device under modulated wideband signal stimulus. It leverages state of the art calibration for the best accuracy, offers single connection and single touch for existing vector network analyzer measurements, and provides the lowest possible residual EVM available in the market today.

The second announcement was the launch of the next generation of network analyzers which deliver reliability and repeatability with best-in-class dynamic range, trace noise and temperature stability, as well as a wide range of software applications, enabling engineers to consistently achieve comprehensive device characterization. Keysight's new E5080B, P50xxA Series, and M980xA Series network analyzers deliver next generation features and performance in benchtop, USB, and PXI form factors. These new analyzers combine built-in pulse generators and modulators, spectrum analysis, and time domain analysis in a single instrument to save time by fully characterizing modern devices without the need for additional test hardware.

These will continue in the other cites over the next several months so it will be interesting to how well they are received in each country. I did not see anything on the agenda for Europe so will inquire about possible events there.