Open Season
November 03, 1999
by Sam Williams
A notice to high tech fans staking out front row
seats for the impending Microsoft-Linux
showdown: There has been a sudden change of
venue.
The PC desktop, site of memorable software
clashes past, has been deemed too old and rickety
to withstand the stresses of another decade.
Instead, both camps have settled on a newer,
more neutral battleground: embedded systems,
centerpiece of the ultra-modern "post-PC" arena.
To paraphrase pugilistic poet Muhammad Ali, "If
you liked 'The Grapple with Apple,' you'll love
'The War at PC/104'"
Never mind the fact that Linux, a cruiserweight in
the PC class, looks more like a corpulent blob
compared when lined up against the current crop
of embedded operating systems. Many Linux
developers are already shipping embedded
versions of the operating system and they like
their chances.
"This is the most exciting thing I've ever been
associated with," says Bill Tauskey, founder and
chief executive officer of ON Channel, a Davis,
Calif., company that began shipping a stripped
down version of Linux dubbed OS 2000 as of last
week, which is designed for cable settop boxes,
PDAs and other devices.
"We think the entire embedded OS market is
available to us," says Tauskey. "Embedded Linux,
in various flavors, will be able to address almost
every device across the board."
History, or what little of it has managed to build
up in a marketplace that barely existed a decade
ago, says differently. Embedded systems is a
generic term describing small-scale computational
devices, sensors and microprocessors, which
have traditionally been a quagmire for large-scale
software companies. Because most embedded
systems have been built for single purpose
use--firing off your automobile air bag at the
moment of collison, for example--the market has
favored smaller, more specialized vendors.
This trend seems to be reversing, however,
thanks to Moore's Law and the Y2K. Moore's Law
has reduced the cost of hardware, making it
possible to substitute specialized devices with
common Intel or Motorola chips. Y2K anxiety,
meanwhile has simply dramatized a lingering
problem in the embedded systems industry: Most
modern consumers barely know how to find the
thousands of embedded devices lurking within
their homes, automobiles and businesses, much
less how to debug them.
Both factors play to the strengths of the Linux
operating system. With its low cost, scalability
and freely modified code, Linux offers a
competitive option to businesses wary of
so-called "black box" solutions. Throw in Internet
connectivity, stability and a growing reputation
for security and support and you have the ideal
conditions for market explosion, proponents say.
"In a way, I compare it to arrival of the
microprocessor in the early 1970s," says Jim
Ready, founder and chief executive officer of
Sunnyvale-based MontaVista, makers of Hard Hat
Linux. "Before the microprocessor, only big men
could build a computer--IBM, Digital, Tandem.
Well, Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs proved that
anybody could build a computer once they had a
microprocessor. With Linux, you're seeing the
same thing. Anybody can build an operating
system once they have access to the kernel."
Nevertheless, not all observers are convinced that
the Linux one-size-fits-all philosophy can work in
the embedded realm. Even Ready likens the
whittling-down process to "stuffing 10 pounds of
code into a one-pound bag." Still, as a former
developer of the VRTX ultra lightweight operating
system designed specifically for embedded
system use, Ready says Linux's built-in
networking capabilities slowly won him over to
the large-kernel cause.
"You look at a whole bunch of things--TCP/IP,
Ethernet, cheaper hardware--and all of a sudden
the light bulb goes off," Ready says. "Linux can
be a killer mid-range to high-end embedded
operating system."
Tauskey shares Ready's sentiment. He says the
growing demand for common standards in
devices ranging from cell phones to personal
digital assistants to kitchen appliances is pushing
Linux to the fore. Customers that move from
real-time operating systems such as VRTX and
QNX to Linux sacrifice a few milliseconds worth
of responsiveness, but gain the speed of the open
source development community.
"As the world of embedded devices becomes
larger and larger, time to market is becoming a
much more critical issue," Tauskey says. "Having
the Linux community becomes a vital asset,
because it means quicker development and
support for device drivers and other new
technologies."
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