There was a ton of great content at ESC UK in Farnborough. Some of the highlights includes a pair of panels (both moderated by yours truly) and a Build Your Own Embedded System track, similar to what's offered at ESCs in the US. Like the Boston ESC, attendees received an Atom-based kit running Windows Embedded.

The two panels covered the Current State of Microelectronics and the Current State of Embedded. Both were mostly driven by questions from a standing-room-only crowd.

The Microelectronics panel consisted of reps from NXP, Freescale, ST, and Imagination Technologies. The questions ranged from, "what is an embedded system," to" who will win between Intel and ARM." (See video of Tony King-Smith, VP of Marketing for Imagination Technologies.) You could imagine what the responses were. (Note: Patrick Mannion offers his opinion on Intel vs. ARM on EETimes.com.) Some of those answers were caught on video, while others were audio-recorded. When I figure out how to post the audio and video, I'll do so. You'll get a kick out of the "what is an embedded system" question. I assure you, it's not the answer you'd give to your mom.

The State of Embedded panel featured three of the biggest stars and most widely recognized experts in the embedded arena—Jack Ganssle, Dan Saks, and Niall Cooling. They were asked questions like what programming language will be most popular five years from now; what advice can you give a student looking to get into the embedded space; and why doesn't anyone care about Java.

The most interesting discussion arose when the subject of Linux came up. Ganssle offered a response that certainly raised a few eyebrows. His declaration that "Linux sucks!" began a whole debate on whether Linux really has a place in the embedded market.

One man's opinion (mine) is that it definitely has a place, but it's not the be all, end all. For the right application, it's quite useful. Just don't have it run the plane that I'm riding or running the servers at my bank.