[ Thanks to Ted Kenney
for this link. ]
“For embedded systems, the build-or-buy decision is getting
pushed down the software component food chain. Embedded systems
hardware developers have long embraced commercial off-the-shelf
(COTS) components to shorten development time and reduce
development costs. In contrast, developers of embedded systems
software have shown a propensity to build from scratch.“Embedded and real-time operating system (RTOS) vendors have
probably enjoyed the most success in swaying software developers to
adopt COTS software versus roll-your-own components. Despite the
millions spent by RTOS vendors to woo developers, this change may
be due as much to technical imperatives, as to successful
marketing. As embedded systems have grown in complexity, a
sufficiently capable custom-built RTOS has become a more difficult
undertaking. For all but the most basic embedded uses, it simply
isn’t practical to write a custom RTOS.“The same is becoming true of middleware and other complex
software components, such as protocol stacks, messaging, and data
management. Consider protocol stacks, for example. High-performance
embedded networking requires fast, reliable and re-entrant TCP/IP
stacks, extensively tested to interoperate with Windows, UNIX and
other TCP/IP stacks…”
Related Story:
iApplianceWeb.com:
Examining Main Memory Databases(Jan 08, 2002)