ESC: Tech experts deliver no fluff, all substance

Karen Field

April 19, 2010

Karen Field

BOSTON — Engineers who register for the Free Expo Pass at the Embedded Systems Conference Silicon Valley, April 26-29, will have access to the exhibition hall (April 27-29) and lots of other free events, including 80 sponsored technical sessions, industry and keynote addresses, and special ESC theater events.

A unique opportunity for Expo attendees is some face time with technical experts like David Kleidermacher, CTO, Green Hills Software. A speaker at this year's conference, Kleidermacher says that it's one of the highlights of ESC for him.

"It's great, because I get to meet so many different people and I never know what topics will come up," he says, "The questions range from 'How does the operating system work?' to very specific questions about an application," he says. "Though when I get asked how much something costs, I say, 'You're talking to the wrong guy!'"

He notes that Green Hills Software will have developers with in-depth, technical knowledge available at its booth during exhibit hours. "No slideware, I promise. They'll be answering questions and doing real demos on real products."

Another speaker, Robert Oshana, director of software R&D for Freescale's Networking and Multimedia Group, also values the conversations. One of the major reasons that he's been coming to ESC since 1995 is because of the interaction with the design community--both to teach and learn. "The embedded industry changes fairly rapidly, there's new applications every year. I'm learning something new every time I come here," he says.

For engineers on a mission to get technical information, as he himself usually is, Oshana says that it's not hard to find the places on the show floor where there is related technology. "And once you start talking, you can get pretty direct access to the experts who can answer your questions," he says.

Christian Legare, vice president at Micrium, who will be speaking at the free session on Embedding TCP/IP: Working Through Implementation Challenges, says he relishes the time he spends with engineers at ESC."Our goal is to transfer knowledge to the industry, and the training sessions we do at ESC are an important part of our company's education efforts," he says.

Many of these conversations at ESC will happen completely ad hoc. But for design engineers who prefer not to leave to chance the opportunity to get their technical questions answered, they can set up appointments in advance.

Two dozen companies are participating in ESC's "Meet the Experts" program; through ESC-Connect, a private, online networking tool, registered attendees can ping technical experts from these companies to check their availability and set a time to meet. Just don't plan to ask them about prices.