Even though MWAR has little to show for their work in the STB market, it would be fair to assume that they accumulated considerable knowledge in video processing applications. Would Sun or Microsoft be able to easily duplicate or acquire this expertise? MWAR could contract to develop real-time application programs for OEM customers. These customers wouldn't necessarily be limited to the STB market.
You are slightly off base, but your conclusion is right. Neither Sun nor Microsoft needs MWAR's expensive experience with set-top boxes. Too many things have changed; too many others are investing hugely in whatever we mean these days by set top boxes. Despite all this, MWAR should refocus on helping organizations develop embedded systems applications, without regard for which RTOS and development tools are chosen use.
This little sideshow about MWAR has a purpose. It is not to pick on MWAR; nor is it to bother to defend against a series of silly press releases that obviously target WIND. The purpose is to begin to take to a new level the question of dominance in the RTOS and associated development toolset. The world does not need Hawk, OS-9, nor for that matter pRISM+ or pSOS. What it needs, indeed what it will demand and get, is a single answer to Windows CE and the Win32 API and development tools. The recently referenced articles about HP and its software strategy, including Java and VxWorks, makes real the new order. Embedded systems is about to enter an era in which VxWorks, backed by HP, Oracle, Sun, IBM, Motorola, Intel, every telephone and network equipment manufacture, and lots of others, will face off against Windows CE, with backing by many other companies and even many backing VxWorks. VxWorks has a clear advantage in deeply embedded systems, and in systems requiring exotic hardware and special handholding. Windows CE has a clear advantage in high level Man Machine Interface systems that attempt to approximate the PC paradigm. Neither company will dominate, at least over the next five to ten years.
All peripheral players must sign onto one side or the other, or risk being squashed. There are no exceptions worth mentioning. It will be possible to hide an RTOS in a niche market for a period of time, but even then it will be harder and harder to hide profitably. Consequently, the answer I was fishing for about what a strategic planner would tell Ken Kaplan is the one you gave when you said, "MWAR could contract to develop real-time application programs for OEM customers. These customers wouldn't necessarily be limited to the STB market."
In the new order, developing embedded systems applications will demand exponential growth of knowledgeable software engineers. In the face of this demand, the fact that MWAR is toying with financial difficulty is inexcusable. Forget OS-9. Drop Hawk before it is too late. MWAR should use its mid-west contacts and labor to become a first-rate, highly profitable company providing services for the development embedded systems. If MWAR can embed OS-9 in some applications to increase profits, more power to them. What they should not do any longer is to try to compete head-to-head with the company that has been endorsed as the market leader, especially at a time when the market has an imperative to consolidate around a leader to provide a concrete, trustworthy roadmap--and in order to counter Microsoft.
Someone should tell Ken Kaplan that his best chance of getting continuing use out of OS-9 is to make it compatible with Tornado, not Hawk. MWAR should attempt to appear RTOS-agnostic to contract development customers, but openly assertive about using Tornado. MWAR should become a Tornado partner and start making money.
I did get one shockingly perfect answer anonymously via email to the question about the proper advice to give MWAR. That person correctly detailed precisely what MWAR should do, along the lines of the final statement you made about MWAR taking on contract development. I should say we all agree about one other thing, the alternative is to package MWAR and sell it cheap.
Allen
PS -- The anonymous person's answer was perfect because it agreed exactly with my preconceived notion of what is correct. It was shocking because everything written was exactly what I was thinking. |
