Re: QNX and the Ottawa Citizen article
>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?
Embedded Systems Research, Scottsdale or Chandler, AZ. The 50% growth rate of Radisys and the 60% growth rate of the x86 embedded BIOS division of Phoenix Technologies also supports the conclusions of their survey. In addition, the article referenced by Peter Grossman about QNX at ottawacitizen.com indicates the trend is accelerating:
"I have at least five potential customers whose individual purchases will exceed the volume of all the software QNX has ever shipped," says Dan Dodge, QNX co-founder and vice-president in charge of R&D.
Based on deals already signed -- and they will produce a stream of royalties starting in 18 months or so -- 17-year-old QNX will see its annual sales soar to more than $100 million within two years....
"In the past I would lose contests because I was on the wrong processor," he says. "Now most of the market is moving to x86, and that's the part we dominate."
QNX is on the right side of history and they'll be bigger than Wind River in a few years.
You stated your reasons for using the x86:
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)
Your situation is addressed in the Radisys 10K:
The embedded computer market can be segmented by annual unit volume. At unit volumes of above about 50,000 units per year, OEMs generally decide to produce their own solutions. At low unit volumes of less than 500 units per year, where customized requirements such as space, cost, functionality and power usually cannot be met efficiently by OEMs, such OEMs typically use off-the-shelf catalog bus/board products. In the intermediate segment (between 500 and 50,000 units per year), unit volumes are sufficient to support a significant design effort but are not large enough to take advantage of very high volume manufacturing channels or to support custom semiconductor designs. Industry applications contained within this intermediate segment of the market include manufacturing automation equipment, telecommunications equipment, medical devices, transportation systems, retail automation equipment and test and measurement equipment. Based on industry sources, the Company believes sales of embedded computer solutions into the intermediate segment of the embedded computer market represented over two-thirds of dollar sales in the total embedded computer market in 1996. |
