On Target: Embedded Systems

Got Ugly Code? Test to See if Quality Runs Deep

In today’s celebrity culture, inner beauty isn’t always a valued trait. But when it comes to embedded software development, beauty is truly on the inside. High quality, well-designed and reliable products necessitate high-quality and highly secure embedded software. Development Testing is one of the most effective ways to achieve this. Development Testing is a rapidly emerging category, including a set of processes and software, designed to easily find and fix quality and security problems early in the development cycle, as the code is being written. All this serves to dramatically improve time to market, reduce development costs and improve customer... Read more →

M2M World Congress – London – Highlights from Day 1 of 2

VDC’s CEO Mitch Solomon is participating in M2M World Congress (one of the industry’s larger M2M-centric conferences) this week in London, and sent in the following post from the field. First off, the event is oversold and is standing room only, a testament to building interest in M2M (…and perhaps the strong promotional efforts of its producer). The day consisted of roughly a dozen presentations and panels, covering a broad landscape of topics. Speakers were largely from major wireless carriers, primarily European. Below are a few key insights (…derived from a much longer list), just hours after the last session... Read more →

Don't Water-Scrum-Fail.

Agile is a great weapon available to OEMs to fight the challenges inherent in device development today. It is not, however, a silver bullet. In a recent post, we explored how Agile projects are still finishing behind schedule, despite favorable comparables against standard V-model workflows. The truth of the matter is that Agile projects are subject to many of the setbacks as traditional ones. They can and will fail. It is more important than ever for engineering organizations to recognize what specialized or unique implementation strategies they need to use to increase their chance's for long-term success with Agile. Many... Read more →

3 Steps to Automate Your Way to Agile

In a recent VDC View, I wrote that "software engineering is broken." Although our industry continues to deliver new and innovative products, too often projects miss the mark. Late. Buggy. Unprofitable. We all hate these words, but hear them repeatedly. Enter Agile. We all know that Agile enables software organizations to continuously deliver working software faster to customers (internal or external). This helps software teams to not only deliver products faster but also in tune with the changing market needs. In practice however, organizations still struggle to get the full benefits of Agile methodology because they have not fully automated... Read more →

VDC to Present Embeddy Awards Live at Design West

Want to see the latest technologies and tricks for embedded engineering? Head to Design West next month in San Jose, CA! Contact us ASAP to schedule a meeting VDC will be attending the Design West/ESC conference from Tuesday April 23 through Thursday April 25. At the show, we will be presenting our 9th annual Embeddy Awards. The winners will be announced Live during Thursday's morning keynote session. So how can your company win the Embeddy award? To be considered, First, fill out this on-line form: http://svy.mk/WU0abA You must also schedule a meeting with VDC to discuss the announcement that you... Read more →

Feeling Insecure?

Then come see my presentation on secure device development best practices at Embedded World! The device development landscape is changing rapidly. The potential cost of security risks looming on the horizon is already causing many OEMs to reevaluate their engineering solutions and processes. I will discuss some of the steps you can take and products you should use when building next generation connected devices. When: 3:00 pm CET Where: Embedded World - Nuremberg, Germany Want to meet at Embedded World? Please contact us if you would like to meet up while in Germany. We are interested in speaking with vendors... Read more →

Your Health… There’s an App for That

The advent of the smartphone has inexplicably changed the way we live – including how we take care of our physical selves at home. Such technology is making a number of traditionally hospital-only services and extended their availability to the general public at an affordable cost. Smartphones, combined with a peripheral sensor and mobile application, are capable of measuring temperature, heart rate, blood pressure, and other vital parameters. Such solutions make the smartphone a chief contributor to the rising adoption of telehealth systems and away-from-hospital services. Scandu, a relatively new personalized health electronics company, has developed a product targeted towards... Read more →

Embedded Security: The Bark is Bigger than the Bite, Part 2

In part one of this blog, we discussed findings showing the limited security actions taken to date in the Industrial Automation and Energy/Power industries. Unfortunately, the gap between stated interest in security and the actions taken to address these concerns is not limited to this vertical. For example, 29% of engineers in military/aerospace and almost 38% of automotive engineers reported their current project involves no security actions. Google has received a great deal of press about their progress in this area, developing their self-driving car. Aaron Robinson, a columnist with Car and Driver magazine wrote about security issues, as they... Read more →

Embedded Security: The Bark is Bigger than the Bite, Part 1

Security has been top of mind with most executives of leading embedded suppliers who we spoke to in the past year. This should come as little surprise given the growing awareness of the potential impact of security breaches. As today’s devices and systems grow more complex and connected, this threat is growing exponentially. Time and again, we hear of some hacker or industrious engineering student demonstrating, either maliciously or as an educational warning, that a linked network may only be as secure as its most vulnerable element. In a recent conversation with one of the foremost automated test and verification... Read more →

It Gets Better

The same end-of-one-year reflection that inspired our embedded software Top 12 of 2012 (part 1 and part 2), encouraged us to take a look back at a metric we continue to track: schedule performance. In VDC’s 2012 developers survey, 35.3% of the respondents said their current project was behind schedule. Just last year over 40% reported schedule slippage. So perhaps 35% is an improvement; but it’s hardly a statistic worth boasting. With an average of twenty five embedded engineers per project, any delay can be detrimental to development budgets, not to mention the reputational damage. Despite an understanding that adherence... Read more →