The process ‘the handover of the company’s management to a new generation‘ which has been underway at RACOM for several years was formally completed in March.

After considering various possibilities, the owners and key people in the company’s management concluded that the best option would be when Marek Bobula, David Marek, Vít Koutenský and Bohumil Sobotka continue to lead the company together. In terms of hierarchy, they are all at the same level and the management of RACOM is without the position of CEO.

The new directors will jointly manage the overall strategy and long-term direction of the company. They are individually responsible for these areas in the day-to-day management of the company:

Marek Bobula – Development and Technology
David Marek – Sales and Marketing
Vít Koutenský – People and Internal processes of the company
Bohumil Sobotka – Production, Finance and Infrastructure

The founders of RACOM, Jiří Hruška and Martin Lácha, are not leaving the company. They work part-time on specific projects: Jiri in SW development, Martin in marketing. If the new management would like, they are always ready to give their opinion and view on the issues they will be dealing with. Bohumil Sobotka, the youngest of the former managing directors, remains in the same position as before and, among other things, ensures the continuity of the former and new management.

Jiri and Martin say: “We are happy that the new management was created from our colleagues who have been working at RACOM for many years. We believe that we are handing over the fate of the company into good hands. We wish the new managing directors the best of luck and thank them for their courage and willingness to take on the responsibility.” 

The General Meeting of Owners, as the supreme body of the company, on 26 March 2024 formally confirmed the above and agreed that RACOM will have four managing directors from 1 April 2024: Marek Bobula, David Marek, Vít Koutenský and Bohumil Sobotka.

This step does not change anything significant for the day-to-day running of the company.

Let’s keep our fingers crossed together that RACOM runs as well or better and for at least as long as before with the new management.

On behalf of the old and new management
David, Bohumil, Vít, Martin, Jiří, Marek

David, Bohumil, Vít, Martin, Jiří, Marek
(on photo from left to right)

The third generation of the M!DGE3 cellular router was launched last year. It has established itself very well among customers and has successfully replaced the M!DGE2, the previous generation.

Our cellular routers are mainly used for data communication in SCADA & Telemetry applications in critical infrastructure for Power and Water, Oil & Gas and other industries. They are also suitable for many other applications where high reliability and 24/7 service are required, such as POS, ATM, Security, etc.

Based on feedback from our customers, we decided to develop the essential version M!DGE3e suitable for less demanding installations. It is built on the same platform as M!DGE3, but we have thoughtfully stripped some features to make it more affordable. Both models are fully compatible.

Together with RipEX radio modems offers an unrivalled solution for combining mobile and licensed UHF/VHF radio in one hybrid network.

The philosophy of the full-featured flagship and its basic version is the same as for our RipEX2 and RipEX2e radio modems. The M!DGE3e does not have the option to be expanded via an mPCIe slot, so it cannot be extended with GPS, other serial interfaces or a second cellular module. There are only two Ethernet and one serial interface, and compared to the M!DGE3, it is missing SFP, digital inputs and outputs, HW tamper and dynamic routing options.

M!DGE2 is gradually being discontinued for new projects and we expect to deliver it only for existing network expansions or in other necessary cases. Of course, we continue to carry out any repairs without any restrictions, just as we continue to maintain the FW.

As annually in January, the management met with the sales team to review the previous year and to inform themselves about the expectations for the year ahead. As usual representatives from product management and R&D also attend the meeting to inform the sales team about upcoming news for 2024 and to get feedback from the market.

Sales managers from Europe came to the meeting at the company’s HQ in Nove Mesto n.M., while others were connected online. Our sales managers are spread around the world in different time zones with a shift from -5 to +7 hours compared to our HQ in the Czech Republic. The time for meeting together is therefore significantly limited and for this reason the meeting was held over two days.

The market situation for components and materials started to stabilize in 2023, so we did not have any problems with delivery dates and we were able to deliver our products to our customers according to their requirements. All of the new launched products, the RipEX2e radio modem, the M!DGE3 mobile router and microwave link RAy3 for 80 GHz, established themselves well in the market and quickly found their customers.

We evaluate the year 2023 as a successful one, we managed to increase our sales and profit compared to 2022. We sold more radio modems and cellular routers, with a significant increase in sales of the new generations of RipEX2 and M!DGE3 at the expense of older types. In microwave links sales were slightly lower, mainly due to the postponement of large tenders to 2024 and the later launch of the RAy3-80.

The sales forecast for 2024 presented by our sales team is optimistic and we should achieve approximately 10% higher volumes in all product lines. All estimates are rather conservative, so we believe that similar to last year we will be able to exceed the forecast and continue to grow.

DISTRIBUTECH 2024, Orlando

FEBRUARY 27-29, 2024 | ORLANDO, FLORIDA

PF 2024

The Webinar “Latest Radio and Cellular Routers in SCADA” we delivered on December 5, 2023 was really successful. We finally had almost 300 registrants from 50 countries.

If you were not able to join the live webcast or want to return to it, the full recording is available here.

You can learn there about the latest models of our radio modems and cellular routers RipEX2e and M!DGE3 and how they complement the other members of their product lines.

You will also learn what the current trends in SCADA communication are and what the focus is on. The webinar also covers hybrid networks that combine communication over a private radio channel and a cellular network.

In case you are interested in the questions that were raised during the webinar and the answers to them, you can find them here.

We thank all participants for their participation and questions and look forward to seeing you at our next webinars.

WEBINAR REGISTRATION

Latest Radio and Cellular Routers in SCADA

RAy3 for 80 GHz has achieved a strong market presence, even though it has only been on sale for 6 months. In November, we hosted a webinar “Get to Know RAy3-80 GHz, RACOM’s new 10 Gb/s link”, which was very well attended with more than 200 registered participants from 39 countries.

The webinar covered the following main topics:

  • How the RAy3-80 performs in mass production
  • Its technical features and capabilities
  • User experiences from the field
  • Its comparison with RAy3 for other frequencies

If you were unable to attend the webinar online or would like to return, the full recording is available on the RACOM YouTube channel here.

The questions raised during the webinar and our responses to them can be found here.

If you have any questions, either technical or commercial, please do not hesitate to contact us here or at racom@racom.eu. The competent member of our team will get back to you promptly.

Thank you to all participants for attending and we look forward to seeing you at our next webinars.

WEBINAR REGISTRATION

Get to Know RAy3-80 GHz, RACOM’s new 10 Gb/s link

WISPAPALOOZA 2023, Las Vegas

October 9 – 12, 2023 | LAS VEGAS, USA

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