I believe that we're coming from different directions. I have great respect for the embedded PC. However, I'm looking at it from a real-time (RTOS) perspective, which is Wind River's main market. If the instrument does not need real-time, and if you don't mind the footprint size, and you are in a situation where you can use a drive, Windows NT is great. (Whether Windows NT or CE is suitable for real-time, hard or soft, is a whole other thread, I'm sure) Also, if you want a nice GUI.. then Windows can't be beat.
If you want real-time, Microsoft/Intel don't offer anything good...yet.
>I'm very surprised. I knew there was a 34% probability,
>but you're the last guy I expected to convert to
>the Church of Intel.
No reason to be surprised. I'm using an x86 and Wind River :)
Neither DOS nor Windows would be suitable, again, for real-time reasons. We're using x86 because the system is easy to build with OTS hardware, and our quantities are low. (If our quantities were higher, and we were going to build our own, the x86 would not have read its head)
With regard to Microsoft. I don't consider them to be doddering etc.
As a matter of fact,as a WIND investor, I fear them most in the embedded world (I'm not sure the fear is rational, or that it's just paranoia:)
>The x86 architecture was 20% of the market in 1995 and
> today it's estimated to be 34%.
Could you give me a reference for these numbers?
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