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The announcement yesterday that Intel was acquiring Wind River Systems (ticker: WIND) for approximately $884 million caught the industry by surprise. For us at Military Embedded Systems, it was literally a “Stop the presses!” moment as we pulled back one story in order to cover this significant breaking news.

First, a disclaimer. I’m a huge fan of Intel, and I frequently write glowing things about the company because I’m convinced they’re the primary technology driver for the embedded industries we follow here. As a result, they invite me to their annual “Intel Developer’s Forum” and give me front-row seating. We’re buds, so to speak. As for Wind River Systems (WRS), I tell the story of getting a frantic call from founder Jerry Fiddler asking for a replacement copy of his own PowerPoint presentation because of a laptop crash. I sent it to him immediately. So yeah, I like Wind River Systems, too. Sounds like one big happy relationship, doesn’t it?

In a play on old terminology, it’s tornado season and Intel and Wind River Systems (WRS) have just launched an F5! With the announcement of Intel’s definitive agreement to acquire WRS, the embedded computing landscape is going to change forever. All of the Intel Embedded and Communications Alliance members and the Wind River Partner Ecosystem plus most of the rest of the embedded computing community are scrambling to determine the impact on their respective strategies.

This is the kind of merger that will definitely change the landscape. How is yet to be determined but it will change. Intel has been shifting more and more into the embedded space as the desktop has reached saturation with Intel Architecture (IA) processor technology leaving them with nowhere else to go. The Intel embedded strategy has grown to dominate the space over the past ten years and is poised to grow even more with this latest news.

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There are a lot of things that have to happen to get an issue of a magazine published. We’ve had a team working very hard for months on making a new type of magazine, the HyperMag, which is a hybrid of an online and print publication delivered in a new digital format. It’s finally time.

Our subscribers got a look at this starting yesterday, but you can read the Industrial Embedded Systems May 2009 issue in the HyperMag format right now.

Thanks to the OpenSystems team for believing.

You just knew Nokia was going to take all kinds of lumps trying to be the next one in the “app store” business. But it’s a necessary step if they want to play the game.

This already is shaping up as the defining battle of the next generation smartphone war. Apple and the Android community have a huge leg up here (and we’re going to hear more about what’s going on in the Android developer world in an upcoming ecast). RIM has come in recently with their own store. Nokia is a late mover and by all accounts, today isn’t going very well for their Ovi Store from a traffic and performance standpoint, but if they figure out their problems they could reach more people than anyone. Motorola still hasn’t figured out content is king, but might just sneak in the Android door. (iRadio? Went into an indefinite coma, losing out to XM and Sirius who both focused on content instead of pure technology.)

You would think Nokia would have gotten this more right on launch; let’s see if they can get going quickly.

Almost everyone I encounter right now seems just a bit on the fatigued and distracted side, thinking about keeping their job or finding one, wishing for vacations but not wanting to be too far away, but wanting to be with family and friends, and just trying to press on through whatever is right in front of us so we don’t have to deal with the bigger picture for a little while. (Me: all the above. More on that later when we have our next issue of Industrial Embedded Systems out shortly.)

So when I ran into Tom Witt of Diversified Technology at lunch yesterday, and he started talking right out of the gate about how this is the time for embedded computing companies to gain market share, and said the switch for some exciting applications is fully “on”, he got my attention. I’ve had all those thoughts and they got lost in the noise lately, but now that it’s quiet enough to think again (except for the 5FDP on the speakers, parental discretion advised, it’s all about the guitar) …

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I started out my trip to the Embedded Systems Conference with a weekend at Lake Tahoe for a couple of days of skiing. I always look forward to enjoying the spring conditions at Tahoe and this year did not let me down. The snow was great and the weather outstanding.

I was very excited as I bought my lift ticket at Squaw Valley on Saturday morning. I signed my credit card receipt and the woman at the ticket booth handed me a credit card sized ticket. I had a puzzled look on my face as she asked me “Are you familiar with our new RFID enabled lift tickets?” She went on to tell me that all I had to do was put this in any pocket away from my cell phone and I would be good to go. I thought – finally embedded RFID technology that I can use! I was very excited to see this advancement in ski ticket technology as I eased my way through the gondola lift gate, no fumbling for a ticket.

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Day 1 of Embedded Systems Conference is wrapped, and it’s always hard to say what was actually at a show this size, so I’ll disclaim this with here’s what I bumped into. There seem to be a few noticeable trends: Adobe Flash continues to be a tool of choice, medical applications are back in vogue, virtualization is getting more real, and small form factors are factoring in everything.

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OK, here’s the deal. We’re at Embedded Systems Conference Silicon Valley and are hoping to see you there, too. Be sure to go farther down the page to get your special discount for the conference if you haven’t registered already.

Exactly two weeks from now, the OpenSystems Media team is showing off the latest in our online content. We’ll be in booth 2229 on both Tuesday, March 31, and Wednesday, April 1, at 5:30pm.

You’ll get to meet and discuss ideas with our digital content manager, Christine Long, and I’ll be around somewhere nearby. We’ll be giving away an Eye-Fi each day to one lucky winner - but you have to be there to win.

Tweet ‘patrickhopper‘ and tell him you’ll be there.

Hector Ruiz, formerly of AMD and now the newly launched GLOBALFOUNDARIES, opened up this year’s Semico Summit by talking turkey to the audience. He reinforced the summit theme of “The Formula for Succuss” with his comments on winning in the down economy. To win, he reminded the audience, you must be able to participate and have the courage to act quickly. Watch for outliers, the observations that are numerically distant from the rest of the data, he reminded them. Here you will find ideas that may be part of the next innovation for your company. Outliers can provide clues as to areas of interest that may point to your next new direction and innovation.

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Embedded systems are becoming increasingly important to today’s products. This trend is seen in research from Aberdeen Group’s November 2008 Engineering Evolved: Getting Mechatronic Performance Right the First Time which introduces that 66% of new products developed in the last year included embedded systems. In fact, Aberdeen Group’s June 2008 Engineering Executive’s Strategic Agenda indentified demand for ’smarter’ products as the greatest pressure on engineering executive’s today explaining the increase in the use of embedded systems. This, combined with shorter product development schedules, is driving a number of improvement initiatives for embedded systems.

From a business perspective, an embedded system offers a lot of opportunity. However, the process of developing these systems can be fraught with challenges. Unclear requirements, tight delivery dates, late availability of target hardware, and lack of visibility to system interactions just add to the complexity.

мебели пловдив

What can you do?

Aberdeen Group is conducting a study that will help companines such as yours determine best practices for developing embedded systems. By participating in this survey, you will be able to see how your processes compare with your peers. Take part in this survey now and for sharing your time and thoughts, the Aberdeen Group will provide you with complimentary access to the full benchmark report as soon as it is published (a $399 value). We look forward to hearing from you, and greatly appreciate your time and participation.

Take the survey now.

The organizers of ESC Silicon Valley 2009 have graciously allowed us to offer our readers a discount of 25% off the conference registration price.

Go here: http://esc-sv09.techinsightsevents.com/ , and use one of the Register buttons. When asked, the priority code to receive the discount is CTIA15. See you there!

I get asked this all the time. Does green mean energy-efficient, or eco-friendly, or low-power, or all the above? We’re launching Deep Green to help all of us answer that question. Hear some of my thoughts introducing this new online feature in Embedded Computing Design debuting in the February e-letter.

Well, the Sirius XM folks got their financing deal done today, but that went unnoticed in many US homes without TV due to the digital switchover that now has some 641 stations broadcasting in digital. Some of the larger stations in populated areas are choosing to wait until June 12, but much of the country switched over today.

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Banging my head … yeah, it’s almost Creed, “My Own Prison”. Chalk it up to the last song I heard on XM this weekend, and the first one I threw in this morning.

Which brings me to the subject of problems now before us. Sirius XM on the verge of bankruptcy. A Mobile World Congress preparing for a seemingly much smaller mobile handset world, perhaps for the next year or two. We don’t actually need a “car czar”, we’ll just keep GM and Chrysler in our pockets here at the White House for a while.

No time for mourning, we ain’t got no time … but what are we to do?

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