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embedded systems conference: best new products & companies ... |
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Chances are your company is facing its toughest business environment in years. Chances are you may not have been able to attend the recent Embedded Systems Conference in San Jose because you or your management realize that spending several thousand dollars to fly out, pay for hotel & food, and incure other miscellaneous expenses might just not be "worth it" when most of that information is available online. So, in the spirit of this "New Frugality," here are eg3's picks for the best new companies and new products announced last week at ESC San Jose. In addition, we have complete online coverage with quick links to all companies and all products announced, here. So you can use eg3's show coverage to be there without "being there."
contents:
- the new frugality: examples from compactpci & xtca
- best new companies: three winners
- best new products: our picks for "best of show"
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MEN Micro’s New ESMexpress® Standard: XM1
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MEN Micro’s new XM1 ESMexpress® System-On-Module, based on the new ANSI-VITA 59 (RSE Rugged System-On-Module Express) computing standard in development, brings the cost and time savings of computer-on-modules (COMs) technology to rugged, harsh and mission-critical environments. The XM1 features the first-generation Intel® Atoml® processor (Z530 at 1.6 GHz or Z510 at 1.1 GHz) based on 45-nm technology.
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the new frugality: examples from compactpci & xtca
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Something changed in 2009, something big. Really big. Everyone is feeling it, and that somber mood pervaded the Embedded Systems Conference. It's not that the world is ending. It's not that our "new depression" means the end of embedded systems. But it is that companies and people have become a lot more frugal - frugal with their time, frugal with their money, and frugal with their thinking. Will innovation stop? Will the entire developed world give up on smart products and go back to eating roots and berries? Panic aside, the trick is to look for innovations that embrace this "new frugality," and to turn your own company's efforts towards improving your own products in ways that first and foremost are cheaper as well as more sophisticated. Do more with less. A lot more with a lot less...
A great example of this "new frugality" came from Emerson Network Power. While many are focusing on the impressive migration to AdvancedTCA, as is Emerson, the company reached back to the past to announce its CPCI6200 CompactPCI® single-board computer (SBC), equipped with the latest Freescale MPC8572 PowerQUICC III dual core processor. Said Hilo Oltman, director of product line marketing, "This product firmly establishes our commitment to the CompactPCI form factor and to continue expanding Emerson Network Power's PowerPC® roadmap to protect legacy technology and provide a clear migration path for users of legacy PowerPC technologies" (Emphasis Added). Translation: Emerson is allowing the newly frugal to extend their CPCI system lifespans with this sort of enhanced CPCI innovation. Kudos, Emerson, kudos. (Release, here).
Another great example of embracing the new frugality came from Performance Technologies. That company has long impressed with its blending of a sophisticated embedded Linux and a complete line of xTCA products, unmatched by either its hardware or software (think embedded Linux provider) competitors - a "total solution" to use a worn-out marketing phrase in a good way. Riding the wave of new frugality, PT announced their NexusWare® Portal, a web-based development and management tool that provides remote management and monitoring of the company's IPnexus® MicroTCA™ platforms. This robust, application-ready system is comprised of the company's award-winning, 1U MicroTCA platform equipped with an Intel® Core™ 2 Duo processor running NexusWare, the company's tightly integrated Linux® OS and development environment. Translation: buy your MicroTCA platform from PT, and get not just a complete Linux but also the management and configuration solution as well. Kudos, PT, kudos. (Release, here).
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best new companies: three winners
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Even in today's environment of frugality - indeed, perhaps because of today's environment of frugality - innovation never stops. Nor can you or your company. You need to keep your eye out for the next big thing, or at least the next new companies that have exciting new products that can enable your own application to be better, cheaper, faster. Here are our picks for the three most exciting "new" companies at ESC Spring.
First up, Synapse. The company provides easy-to-use, intelligent, wireless control and monitoring mesh networks based on their SNAP® technology - an IEEE 802.15.4 protocol combined with an embedded Python interpreter (supporting XML-RPC) for running application code; includes auto-forming, self-healing, multi-hop, over-the-air application changes, battery-powered Sleepy Mesh®, 38.4K bps sustained transfer rates and AES-128 encryption; and OEM services. The company introduced SNAPconnect, which wirelessly enables the Internet of things. SNAP was designed from the beginning to support a bridge to native TCP/IP protocol. No adaptation layer is needed for compressing large IP packets into the much smaller 802.15.4 packet sizes with the resulting inefficient use of CPU and network bandwidth - both scarce resources for embedded devices. (Release, here).
A second "best" new company was Red Pine Signals. The company provides chipsets, modules, and systems that allow developers to quickly add 802.11n functionality to their devices and device networks. The concept behind this and other 802.11x companies at the show is due to the ubiquity of Wi-Fi networks, your application can "piggy back" on Wi-Fi ubiquity rather than having to build a Zigbee or other network from scratch. For certain applications - think medical or consumer - deploying an efficient Wi-Fi solution makes frugality sense: you get the benefits of 802.x's impressive networking capabilities without the costs of having to "go it alone." Example: making your device Wi-Fi friendly can allow an end user at home or a doctor in a hospital to use their iPhone as the universal "remote control". (Details, here).
The third company deserving recognition as a best new company for ESC is Touch Revolution. The company embraces Android technology and some really exciting glass surface projective capacitive touch screens to allow you to both add a touch LCD to your application and to enable a very sophisticated GUI via the Android development environment. The goal is to bring the sophistication of the iPhone interface to thousands of industrial, medical, military and other embedded systems. (Details, here).
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best new products: our picks for "best of show"
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ESC was much more modest this year, but nonetheless a few brave companies launched a few brave new products. All are innovative; some may actually help you in your application. Here are eg3's "best of show" picks for new products.
Best of Show: SNAP®
As we mentioned above, we were thoroughly impressed with Synapse. The company announced SNAPconnect software, for connecting a SNAP® wireless mesh network to the Internet. The goal is to make mesh networking Internet friendly, and the product consequently wins a "best of show" award. (News release, here).
Best of Show: LDRA Tool Suite, v8.0
Software testing and quality is a topic we plan to cover in our May newsletter, but in advance of that more thorough coverage we want to highlight v8.0 of the LDRA tool suite, the first fully automated end-to-end solution for software verification support. Managing requirements throughout the software development lifecycle gives customers a critical cost-cutting
measure absolutely essential during this economic downturn. Reports indicate that up to 70% of project defects are attributed to requirements management and traceability. (News release, here).
Best of Show: StackX™
Finally, RTOS leader Express Logic introduced StackX™, to enable developers to avoid stack overflow in embedded system. This seems like a rather small release, but stack overflows are omnipresent problems in many embedded software designs. What's cool about StackX is that it performs a comprehensive analysis of a complete application at the executable code level, computing the worst-case stack usage the application can experience. (News release, here).
These are just our three favorites for cool new products. You can check out a complete index to all the companies and all the new products, here. Stay tuned for forthcoming newsletter coverage on software quality (May) and GUI (graphical user interface design) (June), as well as our on-going podcast series of interviews with key technology leaders.
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e-clips - about, submit, modify: |
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- about e-clips
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© 2009, eg3.com - info@eg3.com - tel. 510-713-2150
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