I thought an institution was accumulating embedded system companies as a group, and it turns out to be AIM Aggressive Growth. Thanks for the info.
Re your categories:
1. GPS and automobiles intersect big time. In WIND’s recent quarter conference call, Jerry Fiddler indicated that about half the autos in Japan are now being shipped with GPS locaters. Nissan sports BirdView which uses VxWorks. If you want to see a picture of it look at Nissan’s home page.
2. Automobiles per se will not be too important in the near term. Most automobile applications like engine controllers, transmission controllers, anti-lock brakes, will eventually evolve to using CRTOS’s but slowly. The risk of failure is so great in stogy automobile companies that they will move ever so slowly to new technology. My feeling is that automobile companies try the patience of high-tech innovators, moving at a pace that would put a snail to sleep. Nevertheless, VxWorks will control diesel engines in model year 1998, and transmissions in 2000. In time it will become an important direct market for WIND. On the other hand, add-on functionality, like GPS, smart phones, etc. will start becoming important soon.
I am extremely interested in any numbers you get for these categories. I project WIND run-time license fees, with many more assumptions than I would like. I remember from college bridge days that a peek is better than a finesse.
Allen, |
