The Hurwitz Trendwatch
APPLICATION STRATEGIES
Wind River and Insignia Partner to Feast on Embedded Java
By: Tracy Corbo, Senior Analyst, and Evan Quinn, Chief Research Officer -- Reply to: BV-AS@hurwitz.com
On February 13th, Wind River and Insignia Solutions announced a new partnership that will bring the companies closer together in an effort to take advantage of the commercial validity of embedded Java. The agreement includes a strategic investment for Wind River in Insignia Solutions that also lands Wind River a seat on the Insignia board of directors. The two companies will work together under a commercial business development agreement, sharing engineering resources, and will likewise continue to work together on the executive committee of the Java 2 Micro Edition (J2ME) portion of the Java Community Process (JCP). On a technology level, Wind River will license Insignia's Jeode technology, which offers optimized Java Virtual Machines (JVM) technology for embedded development, and Wind River will base their next generation Java development products to target the Jeode JVM platform.
Wind River is a veteran of application development tools, operating systems, and runtimes for embedded systems. It has been in the embedded business since the early 1980s and has made inroads into a wide number of vertical industries that require development tools and solutions for embedded devices. Insignia, founded in 1986, started off by creating virtual machines for running DOS and Windows application on nonIntel devices. In 1996, Insignia shifted focus to Java, and in September 1999, Insignia began shipping Jeode.
THE HURWITZ TAKE: J2ME is the edition of the Java 2 platform targeted at consumer electronics, Internet appliances, and embedded devices. The goal is to provide a common framework that would enable nonPC devices to gain access to the Web and other network-based services. J2ME also supports the notion of smart devices, where fresh software can be shipped to embedded devices to optimize performance and changing conditions.
Due to the high performance requirements, incredible quality assurance levels, and footprint and design constraints needed by embedded devices, Java, an inherently interpretive technology, has had a difficult time overcoming technical inhibitors. However, J2ME (and its predecessor technologies) has been tuned to the point where J2ME is now a viable, vibrant commercial platform for both fixed, embedded devices as well as smart, mobile devices -‚ and everything embedded in between. The device manufacturers all understand the appeal of the Java approach for microelectronics, and have all pursued deals with Sun and the embedded software specialist vendor regarding Java. With Wind River empowered with Jeode, many manufacturers can realize the benefits of J2ME more readily and more immediately.
The partnership between Insignia and Wind River underscores Wind River's recognition of J2ME's ascendance. Insignia's focus on Java now pays off by gaining Wind River's channel reach. Although Wind River has been closely involved with the embedded and personal versions of Java down through the years, it has been a little voyeuristic commercially. The Insignia deal, however, proves that Wind River has made a total commitment to J2ME, and hopes to leverage its leadership position in embedded tools to a leadership position in the next generation of smart device development.
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