Editorial 00q1
The availability of Windows CE 3.0 announces a new era in Real-Time Computing,
We just have finished digesting the take over of ISI by Wind River
Systems and there we go for a brand new Windows CE 3.0 to be released shortly.
We had the opportunity to preview Windows CE 3.0 and came to some remarkable
conclusions.
Everything that went wrong concerning real-time characteristics in
version 2 has been addressed. The changes are sometimes so fundamental
that we can almost talk about a new product.
Fundamental enhancements, compared to the previous version, were needed
to make it a "good" RTOS. Just to quote a few: 256 priority levels, pre-emption
in the ISR, no more memory leaks, additional objects like semaphores are
now in and much more.
Our preliminary tests showed that there seem to be no more lack of
predictability at all. We are eager to start our full test suite once the
final product is released.
Windows CE 3.0 will be a serious alternative for a large range of real-time applications.
The advent of this almost new product will certainly drastically change the market. Today, only 2 major players are left in this previously so diluted market. Wind River Systems is now, after the take over of ISI certainly the major player with approximately 20% of the market and some 1500 people working. Microsoft, with CE and Embedded NT has another 20% of the market. (see our market figures published in the special edition), and also more than 1000 people are working around this products. As seen from their website, Microsoft puts more and more emphasis on these "embedded systems".
What is the place remaining for the other products? QNX is very stable and appreciated by the users. Linux adepts are spreading a lot of noise, but it has still to be proved to be an alternative. OSE will climb in the market due to a very good architecture permitting for easy fail-safe applications. Epoc from Symbian will certainly grow if they market it right. Some RTOS will survive because they are the only to support some esoteric processors.
We are in front of an interesting "stabilisation" period during the next couple of years. Wind River Systems will release new products "replacing" both Wind River Systems and ISI kernels. Microsoft will see the effect of a "real" RTOS, and the market should understand to stop using products nobody else uses.
I really hope that instead of 100 products and more in our buyers guide,
only a couple of 20 will survive. This can only be good for the RTOS market
and make life so much easier for the designer.
We will continue to do our evaluation program to insure that the products
stabilising in the market will be of excellent quality.
