On Target: Embedded Systems

VDC Research has a fresh look!

VDC Research has a fresh look! Come check out our new and improved IoT & Embedded Technology blog at http://www.vdcresearch.com/News-events/iot-blog/ Read more →

CES 2016, Part 3: Wireless IoT Technologies Proliferate

Another of the trends that stood out most to VDC at this year’s CES was the ubiquity of wireless technologies. It was rare that any connected product on display did not include wireless, the most prevalent types being Bluetooth Smart, Wi-Fi, and ZigBee. Bluetooth Smart, also known as Bluetooth Low Energy (LE), is ideal for many wearable devices that will communicate with the user’s nearby smartphone. Wi-Fi is best for IoT devices in a home or small business environment, leveraging existing routers and networking for other PC and Internet communications. ZigBee is a short range mesh network with a communications... Read more →

CES 2016, Part 2: Automotive Technologies Move Forward

At this year’s CES, booths were brimming with IoT products such as home automation devices, connected audio and video gear, pet trackers, and fitness monitors. But one of the trends that stood out most to VDC was the prevalence of automotive technology, which came to the forefront as never before. Two of the keynote speeches at CES featured heads of major carmakers. One of the keynotes was by Mary Barra, CEO of General Motors, although more than half of her presentation was essentially a live infomercial for the 2017 Chevy Bolt all-electric vehicle, including a bit of a cheap-shot at... Read more →

CES 2016, Part 1: Drills, Holes, and Holemakers

Since long before the turn of the millennium, every January has brought to Las Vegas the humongous trade show and conference known as CES. Those three letters no longer officially stand for Consumer Electronics Show, but that’s how many people in the industry still refer to it. The very term “consumer electronics” is usually considered a category of devices, as in a department in retail stores where consumers buy their boxes of TVs, audio and video players, cameras, etc. But as the industry has evolved, more and more of the products have included (or in some cases wholly become) intangibles... Read more →

IoT Market Complexity Demands Buyer Personas

The complexity of the market for IoT products and services creates enormous challenges for the IoT solution marketer. An unlimited set of applications, a complex ecosystem of partners and channels, a wide range of decision makers and influencers, and a continuously changing competitive set can leave the marketer forever chasing his tail. Critical decisions about the content, placement, and timing of marketing messages become extraordinarily difficult in the face of these complex and dynamic conditions. Observing these challenges, VDC undertook a disciplined search for tools and methods that could help IoT marketers think and act more strategically, and achieve better... Read more →

The IoT Citizen: A New Class of Developer

The Citizen Developer What is a “Citizen Developer,” and why are we hearing this term with increasing frequency in the industry? Let’s address the word “developer” first. We are accustomed to thinking of developers as highly technical people with formal training in engineering or computer science, buried in boards and code. Within a traditional corporate enterprise, developers usually fall into the IT department, where they are tasked with maintaining systems, creating business applications, and allocating spending on IT-related hardware and software. The rise of the IT department grew around the need to purchase and maintain computers, servers, and networking equipment... Read more →

VDC Research is attending CES 2016!

Contact us to schedule a meeting VDC Research will be attending CES, the giant consumer electronics trade show and conference in Las Vegas in early January. Last year, the conference had more than 170,000 attendees and 3,600 exhibitors with over 2 million square feet of exhibit space, making it the by far the largest electronics industry trade show in the US. In recent years, the show has also become a major showcase of automotive electronics technology. While we're at CES, we welcome the opportunity to meet with attending vendors to learn more about their embedded solutions and any show-related (or... Read more →

Community Development Critical for IoT Success

The IoT has democratized product engineering and innovation. Increasing device connectivity and open APIs are enabling new types of organizations and developers to innovate in a world previously confined to engineers with highly specialized skill sets. While the traditional embedded ecosystem and its engineers will remain at the heart of the IoT device movement, this new cadre of potential developers and entrepreneurs comprise an important part of the creative base designing future IoT systems. And from giant conferences to local maker fairs, the technology ecosystem has recognized the importance fostering the growth of this “citizen developer” community. In fact, VDC... Read more →

The Battle for the IoT is Being Fought in the MCU Software Ecosystem

System resource restrictions around memory and processing power were one of the fundamental issues that first fueled the development of the embedded operating system ecosystem. Overtime, however, the relative importance of these issues diminished in favor of more robust offerings capable of enabling sophisticated user interfaces and more advanced device connectivity. Now, however, the IoT has catalyzed a new level of market demand for OSs that can operate on MCU-class devices. Most Important Characteristics When Selecting Primary Operating System (Percent of Respondents Indicating MCU Used on Current Project) The sheer volume of small-footprint devices is enticing to silicon and software... Read more →

LogMeIn Helps Grow the IoT Pie at Xively Xperience

Cloud service provider LogMeIn hosted its first Xively Xperience conference on October 1-2, 2015 in Boston. As an invitation-only event, it attracted approximately 200 C-level executives and industry experts for keynotes and panel discussions on the current and future state of the IoT. Although the conference included several demos of technology from LogMeIn and it’s IoT cloud service Xively.com, by and large it was devoted to the IoT as a whole, and not merely a sales pitch for LogMeIn/Xively. As such, it was more an early market effort to help grow the whole IoT pie, rather than carve out a... Read more →