National Instruments, headquartered in Austin, Texas, has been one of the technology pioneers and leaders in virtual instrumentation. This is a revolutionary concept that has changed the way engineers and scientists in industry, government and academia approach measurement and automation. Leveraging the PC and its related technologies, virtual instrumentation increases productivity and lowers costs for customers worldwide through easy-to-integrate software, such as the NI LabVIEW graphical development environment, and modular hardware, such as PXI modules for data acquisition, instrument control and machine vision. Established in 1976, it has more than 3,900 employees with direct operations in over 40 countries. National Instruments markets its products to more than 25,000 companies in over 90 countries.