Forgot to give you an update on the Atmel/Crossbow PR.
Unfortunately, now that the shareholders meeting is over, ABEW's corporate office has gone back into "silent mode". The only thing they said was that their negotiations with Atmel are ongoing and that they were confident in the outcome.
Therefore, I had to do my own DD on the Atmel/Crossbow PR. So far, this is what I've found out...
1) Crossbow does not claim that their software is hardware agnostic.
2) Crossbow does not claim that their software has even been certified by the ZigBee Alliance.
3) Crossbow seems to be more of a module company then a software company - much like Ember.
The bottom line is that there have been many companies that have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars creating a software stack for the ZigBee specification. Unfortunately for them, they built their software stack around ONE hardware platform and must rely on that specific platform for all of their sales. In the long run, these companies know that their software is limited and I believe that is the reason they create a module to further their sales.
ABEW has focused on being the premier software provider for the low-power mesh networking industry - which includes, but is not limited to, the ZigBee industry. I am confident that they will succeed once the ZigBee industry gets into high gear because that is where they are most experienced. Until then, they will probably stay alive by doing individual projects as clients request them.
Recently, the ZigBee Alliance announced that they would upgrade their specification from 802.15.4.0 to a new spec ending in .1 Therefore the new upgrade will become 802.15.4.1
The reason for this upgrade is to make the spec more user friendly towards the HA industry. (HA is short for Home Automation - which is indeed a huge industry.)
Unfortunately, in doing this upgrade many of the ZigBee Alliance members have complained that the OEM's and other manufacturers are holding off from mass production until the new specification is done. Which makes perfect sense. Why would you mass produce your products in 1.0 when the 1.1 spec is right around the corner? The new spec is slated to be finished by September 15th.
Anyway, it is the unanimous belief that once this new spec is completed, the OEM's and other manufacturers will start producing their products in mass quantities.
In the meantime, TI's customers continue to purchase the ZigBee development kits and register their corporate names with AirBee Wireless for support. Soon, we will have the same situation with Infineon's customers. Next, we should have the same set-up with Atmel and STM Micro. September 15th is fast approaching!!!
abew4me
Disclaimer: All comments are just my opinion and should NOT be considered as factual.
AI
