Two billion unit device market tilts toward off-the-shelf software

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Jan. 18, 2006

More than two billion embedded devices shipped in 2004, according to Venture Development Corp., or about one device for every three people on the planet. VDC expects device shipments to achieve double-digit growth through 2007, with off-the-shelf operating systems and development tools playing an increasingly important role in device development.

The VDC findings are from a pair of reports issued by its annual, ongoing Embedded Software Strategic Market Intelligence Report program. The program aims to discover basic quantitative facts about the embedded device market, including total shipments, project starts, and the total potential customer base for embedded software.

VDC divides the embedded market into three categories:

Devices based on "non-commercial" OSes, defined as "systems with in-house developed/proprietary OSes or without a formal OS" (often referred to as the "roll-your-own" market)
Devices based on commercial OSes
Devices based on open source or free OSes

Diminishing roll-your-own

According to VDC, the percentage of devices based on "non-commercial" OSes continues to decline, falling from 43.1 percent in 2001 to 37.1 percent in 2004. The firm sees this trend driven primarily by growing device complexity and connectivity requirements (such as Ethernet, WiFi, and the Internet), along with falling hardware costs, which obviate the resource efficiency provided by many non-commercial OSes.

While non-commercial, in-house OSes traditionally helped device developers shave BOM (bill of materials) costs through memory- and processor-efficient assembly programming, lower hardware costs are making such efficiencies less important, the VDC research suggests.

Additionally, increased complexity and connectivity dictate more powerful hardware, driving developers toward sophisticated commercial or open-source OSes, and away from roll-your-own OSes, according to VDC. Specifically, the firm found projects in all device categories examined shifting toward 32- and 64-bit processors with MMUs (memory management units), and away from 8-bit and 16-bit MCUs (microcontrollers).

Yet another factor is a desire to make development efforts more efficient by standardizing on a single OS for multiple projects, VDC says.

Trend toward Linux

Recent VDC research suggests that between 13 and 15 percent of device developers are using Linux as their primary project's embedded OS, and the firm expects the use of free/open source embedded OSes to increase as the technology matures and as community support resources increase.

"Linux is still the largest, and is expected to grow," said Chris Lanfear, VDC embedded industry analyst.

Other key findings

Additional findings from VDC's report Proprietary Operating Systems -- Capturing the "roll-your-own" market include:

Most device developers claim to have real-time requirements
Non-commercial OS developers tend to get their tools from semiconductor vendors
Open source/free OS developers are more likely to work on new projects
Windows-based development platforms are favored by both commercial and non-commercial OS developers, while open source/free OS developers "overwhelmingly" favor development on Linux-based hosts
Commercial software licensing decisions are led by engineers and development project managers
Commercial OS users tend to work for larger companies
Projects based on "no formal OS" have shorter development times and involve smaller development teams than projects based on formal OSes
Increasingly, software accounts for the bulk of device development costs
About a third of non-commercial OS users are looking to migrate, with 19 percent planning to adopt an open source/free OS
DAT (design automation tools) such as Mathworks's MATLAB-Simulink are used by 15 percent of non-commercial OS developers, a percentage expected to nearly double in two years

Another recently published VDC finding, Embedded Systems Market Statistics, summarizes the key trends in the device computing software market. According to that paper:

The numbers of hardware and software developers involved in device computing are growing, but the overall population of software developers is growing faster
"Well over" 2 billion intelligent devices shipped in 2004, with double-digit annual growth expected through 2007
Total device shipments no longer reflect the size of the device software market, due to royalty-free licensing and the competitive pricing pressure it has brought to bear
New device project starts will grow eight percent annually through 2007
More developers are working on new designs than refining existing designs
Stability and tools availability are primary embedded OS selection factors
Fewer than half of device developers use project management, change management, or source management tools, while fewer than a quarter use design or test automation tools, or requirements management tools
C dominates device programming, followed by assembly, C++, and embedded C++

The VDC reports also offer findings about why embedded projects are cancelled, and more complete information about research methodologies. Information about all eight VDC reports on the embedded market so far this year can be found here.

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