#include: Windows off
the Desktop
by Lindsey Vereen
The arguments about what constitutes an embedded system are not likely to
end anytime soon. In fact, as the universe of embedded systems expands, the
arguments are likely to escalate. Thanks to a relatively broad
infrastructure of tools, operating systems, and processors, the number and
variety of systems grow daily. The realm of embedded systems ranges from
simple 4-bit processors to 64-bit RISC machines and everything
in between;
from a small amount of assembly language to hundreds of thousands of lines
of C++; from a simple control program to, well, Windows CE.
In contrast,
the desktop is a pretty homogeneous place. Most desktop applications,
particularly those in widespread use, have resource demands more or less of
the same order of magnitude, which makes it easy for suppliers to hit the
sweet spot of the market. For applications that fall several standard
deviations away from the mean, other, more specialized
platforms are
available, but they are the exceptions.
Microsoft has been able to
exploit this homogeneity. The ideal in manufacturing is to ship a zillion
identical products. Microsoft has accomplished this on the desktop and
would surely like to do so off the desktop as well. But embedded systems
are a different kettle of
poisson
. Though the total embedded system
market is huge, you find a lot of variation in terms of code size,
operating systems, and MCUs. The large volumes are spread over quite a
broad range of products. Microsoft is trying to position Windows CE to
leverage this diversity. For example, to be attractive in markets away from
the desktop, CE comes in several flavors and runs on numerous processors.
But it’s not clear that Windows CE is the best solution in many of the
applications it is pursuing. Take, for example, the palmtop computer
business. Despite all of the heat that Microsoft and its partners are
generating, and the number of products that are available, the PalmPilot is
still the market leader by a wide margin.
The fact that the PalmPilot is beating all of the Windows CE PDAs says
something about how important it is for your organizer and your desktop to
have compatible OSes. Of course the PalmPilot’s market momentum
benefits from its being earlier to market than the Windows CE products, but
consider that the little-lamented Newton was even earlier.
The Pilot
benefits from longer battery life and apparently better synchronization
with the desktop than the Windows CE
devices. According to Jesse
Berst’s
Anchordesk
, the
New York Times
reported that
Microsoft unsuccessfully recently tried to buy the Pilot software from 3Com
and cited synchronization problems that CE products have had as one of the
reasons (see
www.zdnet.com/anchordesk/story/story_2669.html
). The
article conjectures that Microsoft won’t give up.
Despite the
diversity of embedded
systems and the difficulty of agreeing on a
definition of the term, there is some commonality among most of them. The
recipe includes low interrupt latency, small memory footprint, low power
consumption, and low cost. Although each iteration of Windows CE is more
competitive than the last, those of you who have had to recharge or change
the batteries of your Windows CE-based PDA every week know that it has a
long way to go to usurp the market.
Lindsey Vereen
lvereen@cmp.com
|
