Editorial 1Q99
The RTOS market changes considerably with the advent of Windows CE
In November we started
our RTOS Evaluation Project on-line at the
Visitors Center of
Real-Time Encyclopaedia. Since
then we have received more than 1300 visitor registrations (world-wide) and
the information we have gathered through this, has been able to tell us some
important new things about the Real-Time Operating System market.
First of all, we see that VX-Works truly is the market leader, but that is
nothing new. What is important, is that
36% of registrants say that they DO NOT CURRENTLY USE an RTOS.
This figure falls to 12% of registrants who do not intent to use any RTOS
in the future. This means that there is an immediate growth of 25% possible
in the market .
The interesting question then is where will this business go? Well, Windows
NT and CE take most of this! When we ask what people want us to evaluate
immediately, number ONE is Windows CE with 14% and NT is SECOND with 13%.
No doubt, Microsoft is becoming an important player in the dedicated systems
field. For more details look at the RTOS market review article in this issue,
an executive summary of the full market report to be published soon).
On December 1st, we began selling the
Windows-NT
evaluation report (29.95 USD) via E-commerce and 2 weeks later we added
the complete reports on
INTIME,
RTX and HYPERKERNEL. It is our understanding that E-commerce has not
yet become an everyday event for our customers.
We have noticed that some of our prospects are not yet even on the Internet
(for security reasons), while others may use E-mail, but cannot browse. Others
still have full access, but are just not used to buying via the Internet.
We have learned our lessons and are working on some alternative methods to
make it easier to purchase our reports. Already today, you can generate an
offer, so that you can follow your classic purchase channels. We are
anti-enhancing the system to permit the use of plain old faxes, if
necessary.
By carrying out the evaluations, we can clearly distinguish the good from
the bad, amongst the RTOS, but the most interesting result is the "application
domain classification" of these commercial RTOS. Indeed, the evaluation details
give our customers, and us, the ability to "select" the right RTOS for future
projects and to minimise the risk involved in making such a selection.
We see ourselves more and more as the "dedicated systems expert company".
This magazine is our primary communication channel, to inform you through
the executive summaries about the various RTOS's. If you want more than these
overviews, don't hesitate to go to the
"Visitors Center", or just
ask me.
Dr Martin Timmerman