On Target: Embedded Systems

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 →

Where's The Action On Security Concerns?

Recognition of Software Security Issues Are High; Mitigation is Not I read an interesting report from Spiceworks recently about mobile security actions by IT departments...or perhaps, lack of actions might be more accurate. The report, which is free to download, shows that nearly all IT professionals are worried about security risks affecting mobile devices supported by their company. However, this level of concern vastly outweighs the level of action their organizations have actually taken to lessen security threats. This central finding, while disappointing, does not come as a surprise. Year after year, we see a persistent gap between awareness of... Read more →

Agile2013: VDC Research is heading to Nashville - Music City!

The M2M Embedded Software team is excited to be heading to Nashville to attend Agile2013 (#agile2013). The growing adoption of Agile methodologies is one of the most important developments in the software lifecycle management solution market since VDC started covering it in 2000. Despite origins in the enterprise/IT software development world, iterative software development methods have also taken hold in the embedded market. In fact, nearly 50% of embedded engineers we surveyed in 2012 used Agile and Iterative methods. As embedded systems continue to evolve, organizations still relying on traditional development methodologies are struggling to keep pace with their software... 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 →

Host Development Platforms Used by Embedded Engineers

One of the areas of interest to suppliers of embedded software development tools is to make sure that they target their investments to the type of platforms engineers prefer to use for their software development. Based on VDC’s 2012 survey, a majority of embedded engineers cite the use of Windows-based systems as their preferred development environment. The use of Windows 7 as a host development platform has increased year-over-year and according to survey respondents could reach almost 50% within the next two years as engineering organizations migrate from Windows XP. Windows 8 as a selection, while not included in this... Read more →

An A+ for C++

C++ now the most widely used programming language among VDC survey respondents A common end-user data-related inquiry we receive here at VDC is about the types of programming languages used by embedded software engineers. C and C++ have long held the top spots, as we have previously noted, with C++ closing the gap in recent years. This year, however, C++ actually overtook C as the most widely used programming language among our survey respondents: We expect the growth of C++ to remain strong in the coming years, as object-oriented languages gain further acceptance within the development of safety-critical systems. In... Read more →

Are You Going To Be Ready For The Third Industrial Revolution?

As hordes of soot covered factory workers poured from the bowels of London Olympic Stadium to rip up and haul away remnants of the pastoral agrarian countryside set, my young son struggled to understand how the opening ceremony celebrated British history. Perhaps the sprouting smoke stacks (piping in real sulfur smell!) were more celebratory in person. While one might quibble with some of the directorial decisions of the ceremony, there is little debate of the progress enabled by the 18th Century industrial revolution launched in Britain. A compelling special report in The Economist labels this mechanization of manufacturing as the... Read more →

What Do Engineers Prefer for a Host Development Platform?

Every year VDC conducts an extensive worldwide survey of embedded engineers and their development projects to better understand engineering requirements, preferences, and trends. This information is available from VDC in unique cross tabbed reports to offer readers a detailed, in-depth, view of engineers in the development project trenches. Engineers use numerous tool types in their development projects. Tools range from compilers, debuggers, editors and build tools to software and system lifecycle management tools such as automated test and verification, modeling, and virtual prototyping tools. Some of the factors most important in the selection of tools include price/cost, technical capabilities, ease... Read more →