Very Computer

We are seeing some consolidation in the RTOS market: VxWorks and pSOS will
soon be one.

The article "Wind River Agrees to Purchase Integrated Systems" on page B3
of the 22 October 1999 issue of The Wall Street Journal reports that Wind
River is buying ISI for about $446 million in stock.  The combined entity
will have about 500 employees.  Wind River and ISI were the top two
companies in the non-Microsoft RTOS market, into which MS has been pushing
of late.

The bad news is that we won't be able to play Wind and ISI off against
each other  anymore.  The good news is that the combined entity should be
better able to handle Microsoft.

Joe Gwinn

Maybe not only Microsoft.

Although I have not seen any official statistics, I have the  feeling
that  some  pressure on the traditional RTOS vendors comes from Linux
entering the Real-Time and especially the Embedded Systems market. So
many new companies claiming to be "the" Embedded Linux Experts :-)

Maybe the old game of making money by just selling licenses does  not
work any more the way it used to...

Wolfgang

--

Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.

This is indeed an incredible change of the market place. Regarding Microsoft -
ISI has signed an agreement to distribute WinCE with its pRISM+ development
environment.

I doubt that WRS has plans to deliver on this agreement, which in turn could
cause legal trouble with Billy-boy.

References:     http://www.isi.com/news/press/98/pr98-04-06.htm

Leonid

Hello Leonid,
I doubt that this agreement is uptodate.
The CEO changed, ISI Design Center returned to its old name Dr. Design, ...

This should not be a problem for WRS!!!

Martin Raabe

Quote:> This is indeed an incredible change of the market place. Regarding
Microsoft -
> ISI has signed an agreement to distribute WinCE with its pRISM+
development
> environment.

Well, I don't think (RT) Linux is causing the vendors much trouble just
yet -- not realtime enough, too large for many applications, and just not
ready for prime time yet.  

However, a number of non-Linux open-source RTOSes have been available for
some time, and more have emerged of late.  Wind River always made its
money on the development tools anyway, with the RTOS kernel bundled in for
free.  Wind River's declared mission is to improve their customers' time
to market, which leads to a focus on tools, not kernels.

Joe Gwinn

Mark the word "yet". It needs a lot of ignorance  in  a  RTOS  vendor
*not* carefully watch Linux winning ground.

Quote:>some time, and more have emerged of late.  Wind River always made its
>money on the development tools anyway, with the RTOS kernel bundled in for
>free.  Wind River's declared mission is to improve their customers' time
>to market, which leads to a focus on tools, not kernels.

How long can you continue making money by just selling tools? Do  you
want  to  pay lots of money just to get the GNU compiler and maybe an
IDE?

Wolfgang

--
Software Engineering:  Embedded and Realtime Systems,  Embedded Linux

In C we had to code our own bugs, in C++ we can inherit them.

For those interested in knowing what RT Linux is doing: there is a
three-days workshop (free registration) next month in Vienna
 <http://www.thinkingnerds.com/projects/rtl-ws/rtl-ws.html>

--

Dept. Mechanical Eng., Div. PMA, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium
        <http://www.mech.kuleuven.ac.be/~bruyninc>

No doubt.

Quote:> >some time, and more have emerged of late.  Wind River always made its
> >money on the development tools anyway, with the RTOS kernel bundled in for
> >free.  Wind River's declared mission is to improve their customers' time
> >to market, which leads to a focus on tools, not kernels.

> How long can you continue making money by just selling tools? Do  you
> want  to  pay lots of money just to get the GNU compiler and maybe an
> IDE?

Tools are very important to large industrial developers, who are willing
to pay serious money for such tools.  How do we know?  Because Wind River
makes serious money selling tools, so somebody must be paying serious
money.  There is a lot more to it than a compiler or IDE, although those
are included.  Probably the best thing would be a look at the Wind River
website to see what they are selling.

Joe Gwinn

This is not surprising, the existence of WinCE and the maturation of the
32-bit RTOS market will force consolidation of the players in the market.

Also Linux, RTLinux, and FreeBSD also put significant pressure on the
32-bit RTOS vendors.

emil

--
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Emil P. Rojas
Lapel Software, Inc.

I heard that Gupta was asked this question and said that this referred to an
agreement to develop for WinCE at Dr Design if requested by customers and it
never has been. WinCE heads the way of Bob.

Paul