I don't know enough about Wind River specifically. What I do know is that more and more I am reading about embedded computing. It's even finding its way into a lot of the mainstream press.
Just last night on CNN there was an item about CeBit in Hanover, Germany. All the major OEM's are producing the hand held items using WinCE or Java or the 3Com platform but I don't think these are direct competitors to Wind River.
From what I can understand, it is more likely to be in the areas as mentioned in the article in my last post - areas of industrial automation and "business tasks such as calculating a factory's optimum production, buying materials, cutting paychecks, and dispatching sales representatives."
Regardless, the other issue is the internet and how it has turned the industry on its head - everything connected to everything else and being able to communicate with everything else. This requires a common platform or O/S. WinCE has the GUI to add the human component to the system. The embedded internet is where it is all heading.
Anyway here is an article about the embedded internet. It sees the internet as an opportunity. Presumably Wind River is also concentrating on the embedded internet with its products. The internet may be levelling the playing field.
Developers embrace Internet/Web opportunities
To every developer of embedded systems, the growing use of the Internet and World Wide Web means opportunity. To some, such as NetSilicon, iReady and Vadem, it means a new type of embedded hardware in which standard components such as the processor and operating system are bundled with new elements-networking protocols, graphical user interface and network-oriented peripheral functions.
To others-such as Agranat, Allegro, emWare, Rapid Logic, ISI, Wind River Systems and virtually every major embedded-software vendor-it means a cheap, accessible data pipe, a set of standards that is ubiquitous across applications and environments, and a variety of functions such as browsers, servlets, HTTP, HTML, TCP/IP, SNMP and RMON that can be manipulated and adapted to the requirements of embedded systems.
………Beyond the use of onboard servlets, developers have been looking at other Internet techniques and assessing how they can be useful in a design. In his article in this week's Focus on Embedded Internet, Edward F. Steinfeld, embedded-computing market consultant at Automata International (Westford, Mass.), describes the use of embedded send-email to eliminate the need for a browser to access the device for information. Instead, send-email, he said, can be used to allow a device to send status reports such as various conditions in the system. For a printer, the device can automatically send status reports on such things as toner level, machine jams and temperature variations………
techweb.com
Bill C. |
