Anywhere It Wants
by Lindsey Vereen
When Intel started promoting "Intel inside," a
lot of people (me included) thought their ad agency must be loony. John Q. Public and his lovely wife Jane don't care which processor is in a computer. They most likely don't even own a computer.
Okay, so maybe we were wrong. Who knew that nearly 40% of American households would discover computers when a mere 60% of them are hooked up to cable TV? One thing is certain: Intel opened Pandora's box and showed consumers what's inside.
Embedded systems, which have always been less visible than Intel
processors before the Intel Inside campaign, have suddenly become hip. Conventional wisdom has long held that embedded systems aren't sexy, and it's true that bragging about the processor in your washing machine won't get you any dates. But if you drop by your local Sharper Image store, the adult version of Toys "R" Us, you'll find untold embedded delights. On the exhibit hall floor of this year's Embedded Systems Conference, video game demos and hang glider simulations rubbed shoulders with industrial
controllers and cross compilers.
The one true sign that embedded systems have arrived is their discovery by Microsoft, who is rapidly becoming the 500-lb. gorilla in these parts, thanks to the Windows CE roll-out. When you think of the requirements of embedded systems, terms like small, robust, and real-time come to mind, terms that you don't often associate with Microsoft's product offerings.
The embedded arena is far more fragmented than the desktop world. The variety of architectures and levels of
complexity found there make it unlikely that Microsoft will be able to spread its net over much of it. On the other hand, Microsoft does have the clout to throw resources at the problem. Rumors are that between 300 and 400 programmers are working on CE development-more than the total number of people at most embedded software companies. Then there's the bucks. Consider that Microsoft's 1997 revenues ($11.4 billion) dwarf those of the big kahuna in the embedded software business, Wind River ($64 million).
So if
Microsoft is really serious, it could probably play a larger role than people may think. Consider what happened when a major player jumped into the PC business. In the late '70s and early '80s, the personal computer landscape was populated with the likes of the TRS-80, Commodore PET, Apple II, the Osborne, and the lamented Kaypro CP/M machines. Then IBM rolled out its version with a processor that made people wince and an OS to match, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Could the folks in Redmond pull
off the same trick in the embedded market? There are a couple of arguments against this happening. One reason for IBM's success was the theory that no one ever got fired for buying IBM. Microsoft's name doesn't have the same cachet of "safe choice" that catapulted the IBM PC to prominence. Intel is not so tightly coupled with Microsoft in the embedded market either. Note that CE runs on several non-x86 architectures. Still, Microsoft represents a familiar and comfortable choice for consumers, and
marketing-driven companies will respond to their desires. "Microsoft inside" won't sell any microwave ovens, but maybe it could spell the difference for set-top boxes, VCRs, PDAs, or Sharper Image toys.
In the meantime, let's just hope that Bill Gates isn't watching those Pentium II ads.
