Repost of article: Multiplicity
One world, one operating system? Forget it.
Paul G Schreier, Contributing Editor
New markets have a way of shaking things up. When desktop PCs arrived, venerable mini and mainframe computer suppliers such as Digital, Wang, and IBM watched their empires crumble at the feet of upstarts like Compaq and Microsoft. The emergence of convergence devices—also called Internet appliances, information appliances, digital consumer devices, and post-PC devices—is setting off a similar restructuring, this time in the world of operating systems.
Because Microsoft's OS dominates the desktop so completely, the terms "Windows" and "PC" are all but synonymous. And we've gotten used to thinking of the operating system as a defining characteristic of the product. But this dawning era of convergence brings a new set of technical requirements. So you can erase those old assumptions.
Forget about hegemony. The new landscape will involve a host of frenetic competitors vying to have designers choose their software. Established vendors of RTOSs (real-time operating systems) for embedded systems want to retain their leadership in the new post-PC market. Second-tier suppliers see a chance to step up. A new group of suppliers is arriving with unique offerings. Even vendors of desktop OSs—some of whom never found much success against Windows—see a chance for redemption.
Meanwhile, a growing faction contends that the OS doesn't really matter. Instead, designers' thoughts will be occupied by middleware—chunks of code that work closely with the OS to provide critical features. There's more than one way to build a better mousetrap, and designers will look at any method that can deliver the features after which consumers are lusting.
"The core [real-time OS] feature set is no longer the battleground."
Anup Murarka, Spyglass
Just what's at stake here, anyway? According to International Data Corp, in 1997 PCs accounted for roughly 96 percent of all Internet-access devices shipped in the US. By 2002, we'll see a dramatic reversal, with shipments of consumer information appliances outnumbering consumer PCs. The worldwide market for information appliances in 2004 will exceed 89 million units (accounting for $17.8 billion in sales), up from a market of 11 million units ($2.4 billion) last year.
The needs of convergence devices, which typically involve Internet connections and/or multimedia, present a new set of requirements for designers, who therefore use different criteria to compare candidate environments. "The microkernel itself is the least of our worries when selecting an RTOS," comments Anup Murarka, vice president of Interactive TV at Spyglass. Even though today's RTOSs use different kernels (the core OS code that controls fundamental processes), they all provide a baseline feature set. For example, they all support POSIX (portable operating system interface for Unix), a standard that developers follow to ensure that applications and OSs can work together smoothly. "The core feature set is no longer the battleground," Murarka says.
Instead, support modules and development-tool chains have become paramount. Remember not so long ago when the application you wanted to run was key in choosing a computer platform? If you needed serious engineering tools, you selected Unix. Desktop publishing? The Macintosh. Office tasks? DOS and later Windows.
Today an emerging class of software—middleware—is driving the selection of a convergence OS. In simple terms, middleware refers to software that sits between the OS and the user application. Middleware encompasses the enabling technologies that allow designers to build the applications with which users ultimately interact. Examples include a TCP/IP stack (code that's necessary for Internet communication), a graphics engine, or even a mini Web browser. Reinventing the wheel is out of the question when time to market is so critical. So developers are seeking OS vendors who have integrated these convergence capabilities into their product lines.
Why bother?
Before digging any deeper into this topic, let's be cynical for a moment. If convergence devices have only a few specialized tasks, do they require a full-blown, multitasking kernel at all? Can't you simply write program code that boots up from ROM (read-only memory) and executes the required tasks?
It's not such a radical notion. Consider, for instance, Thompson Consumer Electronics' Lyra MP3 player. This groundbreaking convergence device uses no RTOS. Rather, it works with a simple mini-kernel running on a Texas Instruments DSP, which joins forces with an NEC microcontroller. In addition to supervisory functions, the DSP uses its onboard memory to perform sample-rate conversion, provide digital volume control, implement a five-band equalizer, and handle audio fast-forwarding and rewinding. The NEC chip controls the user interface, keyboard, and display, and runs the file system that reads music tracks off of CompactFlash memory cards.
Indeed, the fact that the Lyra doesn't need to write to memory at all allowed its designers to get by without an RTOS. Users load music into the CompactFlash cards using a PC, so many of the functions that would otherwise require an RTOS can reside on the PC. When the Lyra reads the card, it simply examines the file-allocation table, recovers the directory listing, and starts streaming the music. Similarly, the Lyra contains no music decoder. Instead, the PC places an executable file, which contains the decoding algorithm, along with the music file on the memory card. This approach will make it easy for Thompson to upgrade the system to handle new formats as consumer tastes and industry standards change.
Designers speak
The Lyra's champion at Thompson, Tibor Csicsatka, admits that if a suitable RTOS had been available for the NEC chip during the design phase, he might have been tempted to go with it. This philosophy concurs with that of most design consultants. Consider some words from Steve Christian, marketing director at Doctor Design (a consulting firm that recently became part of Wind River Systems): "In this day and age it's foolish to try and get by without a foundation on which to base hardware and application layers. You want to get from a napkin sketch to a shipping product in the shortest time. We're always looking for shortcuts, and an RTOS provides a good one on the development path."
"You want to get from a napkin sketch to a shipping product in the shortest time. We're always looking for shortcuts, and an RTOS provides a good one."
Steve Christian, Doctor Design
Adds Paul Leroux, technology analyst at QNX Software Systems, "I can't imagine most net-appliance manufacturers wanting to do any of this work themselves. Writing a browser, for example, is a never-ending process, and precious few software houses are competent enough to do it properly. More to the point, most players in this space want to concentrate on the user experience, on what they can add, and not on the underlying technology."
Steve Christian
Christian expands on this point, noting that for convergence devices, the nuts and bolts of the OS play a relatively insignificant role in the decision matrix. "When first sitting down with prospective clients, we often start by talking about the middleware they want, such as a Web browser or a Java environment," Christian says. "Then we find the best OS and chips that can run that middleware while meeting other design criteria, such as size and cost." Middleware has come to dominate designs in terms of code size, royalties, and user-interaction models, he adds.
Another design consultancy brings interesting perspectives to net appliances thanks to its history. At one time, Spyglass was the exclusive licensor of the Mosaic browser technology, but several years ago the firm started to focus on embedded-systems design. Today its target markets are interactive TV and mobile data. When selecting an OS, reflects Spyglass' Murarka, designers must remember their basic objectives: time to market, product functions, and the overall software strategy. Your choices will differ according to whether you're designing a single product or planning a scalable design for a series of future products. He adds that price is becoming an important and sometimes messy issue. Will you pay a one-time charge for the OS? Pay royalties on each design? Cough up for each product shipped?
Need support
Support tools for the OS also warrant careful attention, Murarka says. "We've seen tool chains so poor that we've sometimes spent more money working around development-tool problems than we spent in up-front costs." This threat could be especially large if you're looking at a no-charge OS such as Linux (see sidebar, "Linux starts to converge").
The tool chain can be a crucial element, agrees Jeff Silver, sales manager with Annasoft Systems, a design consultancy that specializes in Windows CE. In his experience, customers choose WinCE because of its wide range of familiar development tools, its GUI, the availability of Microsoft Foundation Classes, and the availability of connectivity stacks such as TCP/IP. Further, he cites the army of Windows developers as an asset. As for the argument that designers should choose middleware first, Silver notes that WinCE offers considerable capabilities with no extra purchase.
Windows CE isn't dominating the convergence space by any means, and Silver admits the OS would be overkill in some classes of devices, such as MP3 players. For one thing, it runs only on 32-bit processors, and imposes a footprint as large as 5 or 6 Mbytes. Much of the criticism volleyed at Windows CE has focused on its poor real-time characteristics. Silver predicts that version 3.0, due out in a few months, will make CE attractive for new classes of devices, especially those where real-time operation is important. The current version's interrupt latency—a measure of how quickly it responds to requests—is roughly 250 microseconds, Silver says. But version 3.0 should drop that to below 50 microseconds, making a huge difference in some cases, according to Silver.
Tantalized by huge market projections, other established OS vendors are making efforts to convince engineering managers that they've got what it takes to speed development in the convergence space. Often it simply involves taking existing products and wrapping them up in new marketing clothes.
For example, QNX offers the Internet Appliance Toolkit. Besides the QNX OS, the toolkit adds an embeddable windowing system called the Photon microGUI, plus the Voyager Internet Suite, which includes an HTML browser, an email client, an Internet dialer, and a Web server. Supporting elements include a TCP/IP stack and development goodies like C/C++ compilers. Going a step further, QNX has joined forces with National Semiconductor to supply a reference design for the WebPAD, a touchscreen wireless device optimized for Web browsing and email. The firms claim that OEMs can go from concept to finished product in six weeks.
While Microware has a long history of providing middleware, it hasn't done a terribly good job at letting the world know about, says Curt Schwaderer, director of network technologies. He claims that his firm was the first to include a TCP/IP stack in 1987, the first to include a GUI with the 1989 introduction of Rave, and addressed digital TV technology as early as 1994 with an OS product called David (digital audio video interactive decoder). Microware was also the first to license a Java machine to use with an RTOS, and meanwhile has 350,000 Java-based devices deployed, claiming 99 percent of that market segment, according to Schwaderer.
Recognizing that development tools can be as important as middleware, some firms with strong backgrounds in tools are shifting to operating environments. Wind River Systems bought Integrated Systems and its well-known pSOS to deliver a stronger one-two punch in the embedded world, with an eye on the convergence marketplace. Other firms haven't purchased product lines outright but are instead forming tight alliances. For instance, Green Hills Software, traditionally a tool supplier, recently entered an arrangement to serve as the exclusive sales and support branch for Express Logic's royalty-free ThreadX RTOS. The two products aren't just bundled together for shopping convenience, says Express Logic President Bill Lamie; they're tightly integrated to quicken the development of optimal target code.
An emerging breed of operating environment combines the functionality of an OS with a subset of middleware tailored for a very specific application niche.
The situation has even reached the point where you can get an RTOS for free—literally. Expanding its desktop concept into the embedded arena, Linux-packager Red Hat recently acquired Cygnus Solutions, which for several years has made available at no charge its eCos (embedded configurable OS). The OS has mainly supported development work on Windows NT hosts, but the obvious move to Linux is underway.
The embedded market is attracting other desktop OS companies. Perhaps looking for another chance after nearly a decade of having little impact on the desktop, Be Inc recently announced a platform dubbed BeIA, which specifically targets information and entertainment appliances. Founded by Apple veteran Jean-Louis Gassee, Be hopes to leverage its multimedia experience. BelA includes an integrated Web browser and a Java virtual machine. The OS also supplies services tailored for streaming media, such as data conversion, buffering, and presentation. At the highest level lie application services such as email support, file viewing, or even a PIM (personal information manager) module. BelA runs on Pentium or PowerPC processors.
Another familiar name is looking to expand its customer base, even though it's already well known in the convergence space. Most products running the PalmOS today come from 3Com itself or OEMs such as IBM and Franklin. A few other firms—among them Handspring (with its Visor), Symbol (the SPT1500/1700), Qualcomm (the pdQ), and TRG (the TRGpro)—have licensed the OS. Other recent licensees include Sony, Nokia and Motorola, although they have yet to announce products.
Do one thing, do it well
That 3Com is pushing the PalmOS as an alternative platform for convergence devices merely hints at the specialization the market is starting to see. An emerging breed of operating environments combine the functionality of an OS with a subset of middleware tailored for extremely narrow application niches.
How many design teams need a package optimized for digital cameras? More than a handful, hopes FlashPoint Technology, which developed its Digita operating environment just for that niche. Among the vendors working with it are Kodak, Minolta, Hewlett-Packard, and Epson (in photo printers). Digita makes it simple for designers to deliver products that let users easily capture, edit, catalog, annotate, and share digital photos, according to Stephen Saylor, FlashPoint's executive vice president and general manager.
Digita runs on top of VxWorks, but Saylor says Wind River Systems' most important contribution is the tool chain. Just 20 percent of Digita's memory footprint is related to VxWorks, primarily real-time services and the file system. FlashPoint then supplies support for USB ports, PC Cards, and serial ports, as well as a toolbox layer including a small-footprint GUI, class libraries, and a multimedia-friendly database manager. Finally, developers use an API to write programs, create unique features, and add applets.
Following the "Intel Inside" model, Flashpoint plans to use a logo-based marketing engine that creates demand for products using Digita. Furthermore, all Digita licensees participate in patent agreements and patent pooling, as they would in a consortium, Saylor adds.
Another specialist, Symbian, targets its Epoc OS/application suite and its recently announced Quartz reference design at wireless information devices such as smart phones and portable communicators. Formerly the software division of Psion, the company in 1998 became an independent joint venture of Ericsson, Nokia, Motorola, and Psion, with Matsushita joining the fold roughly a year ago. Here again you get more than a kernel. Epoc supplies an application suite that includes modules for communications, a PIM, office programs, utilities, system tools, and desktop-synchronization tools.
Similarly, Phone.com (formerly Unwired Planet) develops software for the convergence of the Internet and telephony. Its UP family brings email and net-based information services to the screens of mass-market wireless phones. More than 20 phone manufacturers have licensed the UP.Browser microbrowser and UP.Smart application suite, which enable them to enhance their devices with Internet access. Third parties work with the freely available UP.SDK (software development kit) to create Web-based content and apps suited for the UP.Browser.
Recognizing the importance of flash memory in digital devices, e.Digital developed MicroOS, which specializes in managing flash devices—organizing files, controlling power use, and preventing trouble by ensuring even wear of the chip's memory cells. The firm has since evolved into a design house specializing in emerging markets where users pull multimedia content off the net. The company provides reference platforms such as a multi-codec music player built around a Texas Instruments DSP. It also developed Cquence, a portable digital voice recorder and docking station, for Lanier Worldwide. Based on the Lanier project, e.Digital expanded the MicroOS to incorporate the real-time functions needed for such designs.
