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We all can agree that good market information is essential for a company’s growth, competitive and strategic planning and sales support.

 

 

        

       But what is worse – bad information or no information whatsoever?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I recently read a story about an explorer looking for artifacts along the Amazon River when he happened upon some 50 or more tribesmen each carrying spears. Fearing for his life he cried out “Dear Lord I’m totally screwed”. A dark cloud appeared and a loud voice cried out, “you are NOT screwed – pick up the stone in front of you and kill the chief.” The man picked up and threw the stone hitting the chief in the head, killing him instantly.

The explorer looked up to see more than 50 tribesmen running at him aiming their spears at him. Looking up to the dark cloud, he heard the voice say “NOW you’re screwed!”

 

This is what Dolores and I ponder when we are publishing survey-based market intelligence and using it to address opportunities and threats that confront our subscribers. Giving advice is easy – giving “good” advice based on statistically accurate comprehensive surveys is essential.  

 

We carefully track what we and what others publish and how close each of us comes to correctly forecasting the marketplace. As Dolores is relatively new to our industry, she is finding it hard to understand why market research groups that have been grossly wrong made much more money than we did. Dolores was beside herself asking what happened to those companies that got it wrong. The answer is nothing – newer companies bought their research and the analysts that were wrong found new lines of work. We, on the other hand, have been here for 15 years and plan to be here a lot longer.

 

Before we get to our forecasts, let me provide some background. Perhaps some of you can help me answer some of Dolores’ questions – questions that I wish I could answer. Times have changed since I was on your side of the industry.

 

 A bit of background:

 

Dolores moved from education to the dreaded private sector when we became engaged some 5 years ago. Though having sufficient credits to complete a Ph.D. in performance analysis for validating student progress (skills that would bide her well at EMF), she was already at the highest pay level she could attain and she was more interested in seeing student improvement first hand, rather than theorizing about it and writing papers for her peers.

 

The professional environment in which she performed was union-based and raises were predicated on time on the job, degrees and post-graduate credits – actual performance was not a consideration and tenure was earned in as little as 3 years.

 

Her transition to our performance-based world was easy – she studied hard and attended many conferences and technical presentations over the years, yet her background in data analysis and performance outcomes supported her curiosity regarding how businesses grow or fail based on how they use available information for strategic planning, competitive analysis and sales support. Not only was she able to support my data-mining efforts with her experience, but she is able to ask embarrassing questions of me when she read (and schoolmarmed) my reports.

 

As embedded professionals, perhaps you can relate to the questions she has asked – and maybe provide us some feedback.

 

It usually begins with “I’m sure that this is a stupid question, but …” If I can’t explain it to her, then I probably didn’t think it through sufficiently.

 

Here are some of the many questions that she asks about companies in the embedded industry that I have a hard time answering:

 

1)     Why do companies with very smart people spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on sales development and much less on marketing?

2)     Why to companies that understand the value of marketing for sales and competitive positioning – and spend in some cases millions of dollars in their marketing efforts – spend very little on detailed, relevant and comprehensive market intelligence information?

3)     Why do these very smart people choose to ignore clear market signs (even when made aware of them) that can significantly impact current markets, future revenue streams and company survival?

4)     Why do so many European-based company CEOs micromanage their executives instead of hiring the best and freeing them up to success? Is this a better approach to corporate controls?

 

Forgive what might be construed as a commercial – what really drives her buggy is that she asks me (and not infrequently potential subscribers) “Tell me what I’m missing here; Companies can have access to detailed data that they can use for sales promotion, strategic planning, and competitive analysis for less than one-fourth what they pay for an administrative assistant. Moreover, they can have access to the information that the US military and many prime contractors have about them in order to better respond. Why isn’t someone fired?”

 

 

 What’s on the Embedded Horizon?  EMF’s look at markets that are in transition – creating opportunities as well as threats

 

Looking at Mobile Devices and Consumer Electronics

 

If you are in – or looking to get into – this market segment you will find plentiful opportunities and incredible challenges. New processors and new platforms are appearing regularly and the fickle user base will drop you without hesitation. Now that analog TV signals have gone the way of the Platypus, the FCC is assigning these “white channels” for public use. Herein we will see long range WiFi, and enhanced data handling capabilities that will provide new and dazzling apps that will drive newer markets. Time-to-market will be a crucial consideration, so the ability to reuse code and to apply such code to new interfaces and hardware will determine who will win and who will lose.

 

Do you provide mobile or consumer electronic products or applications? Do you know what processors, OSes and platforms provide better and timelier design outcomes? Does it matter to you? Is your resume up to date?

 

Looking at Medical Devices

 

If we separate medical devices into two cadres; one that supports devices that are attended to by medical staff (ultrasound, CAT scans, renal dialysis, etc.), the other that needs to operate independently of medical support staff (patient monitoring) we see that the same technology that keep military and commercial aircraft operating under secure and mission critical conditions is overkill for medical applications.

 

Did you know?

 

• The medical device marketplace has been growing at a double digit rate – and new considerations should enhance opportunities for embedded vendors in 2011 – IF they take the time to correctly understand the selling points
• Considerable attention has been given to the medical marketplace by vendors seeking a safe haven from the expected decline in mil/aero. EMF believes that many such vendors don’t understand the market segment, how to sell to it, or what the users need and will purchase
• It would be funny if it wasn’t sad that certain leading RTOS vendors are pushing their certified high power, mission critical OSes towards an industry that develops products whose defining frequency requirements are less than 100 Hz
• New CDRH/FDA initiatives are acting to create opportunities and threats.

 

Having brought many products through the 510k process and to market, and understanding the purchasing value system within the medical device marketplace, I am amused at the hundreds of thousands of dollars that vendors throw away on pursuing meaningless approaches to this marketplace. Dolores gets the “everything looks like a nail theory” and it was hard for her to keep a straight face when one colleague who is a vendor’s VP told us that it took them a year (and mucho dinero) to discover that what we gave them for free was correct.

 

The Coming Tsunami

The Aerospace and Defense Industries of the United States are poised to undergo one of the most significant changes since the end of the Cold War; perhaps the most significant since World War II. We believe that observers (embedded vendors included) who expect small changes are mistaken, thereby fostering a false and dangerous sense of security across much of the industry and government.

 

The impact to our economy goes far beyond our current financial problems and involves fundamental structural changes taking place in the industry and in the market. As in prior shifts of this nature, there will be winners and losers – however these shifts may be profound, creating more dramatic winners and losers than in the last cycle.

 

The impact of major primes shifting financial challenges to their vendors (and by association to embedded sub-vendors) will reach down into the value chain, in some cases devastating naïve second and third tier vendors.

 

To make matters more challenging for industry, as spending draws down, the effect on industry will be dramatic beyond the proportions of top line reductions.  This will be caused by a squeeze on the so called “Investment Accounts.”  These Investment Accounts are the funds used for product development and buying equipment.

 

Embedded vendors that offer “high end” OSes and tools will be hardest hit as reductions in DoD discretionary funding and the actions of prime contractors to absorb overhead within the limits of their financial structure.

 

We expect to see reductions in outsourcing to and purchasing from embedded markets defined as “mission critical” and that involve MILS security, DO-178B, and virtualization technologies as these anticipated contractions take place over the ensuing 2-3 year period. Many high-end vendors are already looking to alternative markets to shore up expected reductions – but most lack the data to determine which markets they can competitively serve.

 

What if the Hokey-Pokey is NOT what it’s all about?

 

Back in the 1950’s and sixties, the rage was a dance called the Hokey-Pokey. It was yesterday’s Electric Slide and Macarena. Everyone did the Hokey-Pokey, or they were social outcasts. The song used the words “You put your whole self in and then your whole self out. You do the Hokey-Pokey and you turn yourself around – that’s what it’s all about.”

 

In year’s past, the Embedded Systems Conferences (whether they were held in San Jose, Boston or Chicago) were what it was all about. If you missed taking a booth at any conference, one went to the bottom of the availability list – cast out to the dungeon. Failing to display at an ESC conference was a tacit admission to the world that you were going out of business. Many years ago Wind River declined to attend ESC Boston and Green Hills Software gave out milk cartons showing a tornado with the caption, “Have you seen Wind River anywhere?”

 

Although the Embedded Systems conferences held in Germany have largely replaced ESC in size and grandeur, CMP’s ESC Boston is still an extremely important venue for our industry.

 

Aside from flash backs from my glory days (I can still do the Electric Slide and the Macarena, thank you – notwithstanding some breathing difficulties), I couldn’t help missing the glory days of ESC Boston as we attended this year’s event.

 

We were shocked to see how much smaller the event was as compared with previous years – this seemed to be the consensus as well of editors who remember the event going back 10 years or more. Second, other than a few large booths (Microchip, Green Hills and IBM stand out in memory) the booths we saw were small and the number of software companies attending with booths were few and far between.

 

We did see, and speak with, executives from a number of embedded software companies who attended without having booths. They will certainly be at ESC San Jose next May – but not in Boston.

 

We’re not sure if we can blame it on the economy since we have seen the decline over the past 3 years. But we did note that the smaller size did put a crimp on the sponsor’s spending. You see, we editors and analysts have been spoiled in the past. The press room was filled with drinks, munchies and sandwiches of all types. This year we couldn’t even get a cup of coffee. We had to walk a hundred yards or more to get a cup which was inconvenient – but we understood that times were tough for CMP Media.

 

ESC has continued to survive thanks to Microsoft – but that is a two-edged sword. Microsoft has made demands on attendees – which in the long run was counter productive. But CMP has had little choice in the matter.

 

We continue to see a lot of board companies, dynamic and static analysis tool vendors and a hodge-podge of services companies. The floor traffic appeared rather light to us, but many vendors said that they received qualified leads – particularly on the first day. CMP has gone to great lengths to arrange teaching sessions so that there would be adequate traffic on the floor.

 

We heard a lot of questions and concerns regarding processors – and in particular those that would be favored during the next two year period. This was good for us as these issues are covered in detail in our research.

 

All in all, we continue to believe in the value of ESC Boston and hope that CMP will continue to provide this important venue – for the advantages to vendors and developers as well.

 

I will live with the knowledge that the Hokey-Pokey is NOT what it’s all about anymore – and that will be my little secret. After all, a recent survey of freshmen entering college showed that they never heard about the Challenger accident, tape recorders or the Kennedy assassination, I can deal with the Hokey-Pokey situation.

 

If they know about the Macarena they probably think it is for grandparents like Dolores and me. We don’t dare tell them about the Hokey-Pokey – they probably think that we are a waste of good oxygen as it is.

 

ESC Boston is dead – long live ESC Boston.

 

Amen

Every year, for the past 12 years, EMF has asked embedded developers to respond to a comprehensive and detailed survey that explores all aspects of their design and development activities in a manner that permits EMF to correlate answers to any questions – or series of questions – with any other question or series of questions. The survey is constructed and conducted in a statistically accurate manner to insure valid interpretations (including the ability to create comparative ROIs between similar product offerings).

 

In 2010, 536 developers responded to the survey resulting in a statistical confidence level of 95% +/- 4.5%. This is extremely important to EMF as many of our subscribers are basing their competitive position by needing to  forecast what chip and OS usages will be two years from now.

 

We can, of course, examine these responses from the perspective of any vendor’s individual operating system (which many of our subscribers do to look at their users as well as their competitor’s users).

 

Year-over-year we ask developers to select from among many alternative responses (we limit each developer to a maximum of 4 responses) to the question regarding which factors are most important to their decision to select an operating system. We also ask what factors would enter into their decision to purchase from either a single vendor or from multiple vendors. We may publish this data in another post.

 

The following table presents comparative responses to the factors regarding the OS selection process for the periods 2009 and 2010. The top 15 responses (out of 33 possible) are presented.

 

	2010	2009
	Industry	Industry
Acquisition cost	44.6%	36.7%
Availability of source code	33.1%	26.4%
Microprocessor support	30.4%	22.9%
Real time performance	29.8%	34.8%
Compatibility with our development tools	27.6%	29.0%
Includes good development tools	26.6%	24.5%
Reliability	25.2%	31.1%
Compatible with Linux	24.1%	17.8%
Availability of perpetual license	22.7%	20.6%
Availability of req. middleware or networking protocols	18.1%	14.3%
Availability of professional services	16.7%	12.1%
Host platform support	15.0%	15.0%
Quality of support	14.4%	19.2%
Royalty cost (production licenses)	14.2%	9.8%
Must be open source	13.4%	10.7%

 

The lists are comparable between 2009 and 2010 with “realtime performance” and “reliability” taking the steepest drop (but remaining important nonetheless), and “Linux” compatibility “microprocessor support” and “source code availability” being the largest gainers.

 

This bodes well for the Linux community. Such items as “safety certifiable (DO178B, etc.)”, “visualization” and ““security certification (NSA, Common Criteria)” received middle single digit response levels.

 

We have seen this result for many years – and, due to the proliferation of communications and consumer devices, this is why we have forecast the growth in ThreadX, Micrium, MontaVista Linux and Nucleus use. These OSes have been deployed in hundreds of millions of devices worldwide. Unless the application calls for a MILS level certification, alternative OSes are being used in place of the high power OSes of the past.

Comparing Modeling Design Outcomes with Comparable non-modeling Design Outcomes

 

 

 

 

In a soon to be published EMF white paper, cadres of comparable design outcomes were developed between developers that used MBD tools and those that didn’t. Cadres were established worldwide, for North America, for Asia, and for Europe.

 

In addition, specific analyses were conducted for MBD and non-MBD cadres for Telecom/Datacom, Medical, Automotive Transportation and Industrial Automation application markets.

 

 

 

Total Cost of Development calculations were conducted using:

• Number of software and hardware engineers per project
• Time from design start to product shipment
• Percent of designs cancelled and the number of months elapsed before cancellation
• Percent of designs completed behind schedule and number of months behind

 

The following table summarizes EMF’s findings. For comparison, the cost per developer man month was chosen to be $10,000. Clearly, this dollar value is high for Asian developers. However this value was chosen for internal geographic analysis only – to establish whether MBD provided an advantage or not. These values are not to be used to compare, for example,  Asian costs with European costs.

 

				MBD
		Non-MBD Cost	MBD Cost	Advantage
	North America	$3,921,519	$3,153,452	24.4%
	Europe	$3,744,894	$2,722,134	37.6%
	Asia	$10,189,266	$3,374,067	202.0%

 

Looking at worldwide developments (that is interrogating the entire database irrespective of geographic considerations), the following table summarizes the EMF findings.

 

	World	World Industry
	Industry MBD	Not MBD
Devel time Months	13.4	13.1
% behind schedule	44.3%	49.9%
Months behind	3.7	3.7
Ave Delay Months	1.63	1.83
% cancelled	10.1%	12.1%
Months lost to cancellation	4.2	4.7
SW Developers/proj	11.0	16.3
HW Developers/proj	8.9	10.9
Total project developers	19.9	27.2
Average Developer months/project	266.2	358.1
Developer months lost to schedule	32.4	49.8
Developer months lost to cancellation	8.5	15.5
Total developer months/ project	307.1	423.4
At $10,000/developer month
Average developer cost/project	$2,662,098	$3,580,843
Average cost to delay	$323,977	$497,835
Total developer cost/project	$2,986,075	$4,078,677
	MBD Adv	36.6%

 

It is interesting to note that in every analysis, regardless of the cadres used (i.e., each vertical or geographic comparative breakout), MBD projects used fewer developers. When analyzing cost overruns (i.e., the number of developer months lost to cancellation or late completion) to total project developer months, the percent of cost overruns to total project developer months was less for MBD in every analysis.

 

EMF suggests that this data shows that the advantages in using simulation-modeling as a design methodology are real and that these practices will be adopted for reasons not only related to design outcomes, but for financial ROI reasons as well.

Insights from the 2010 EMF Survey of Embedded Developers

  

Each year EMF conducts a thorough and detailed survey of embedded developers. Using the EMF Dashboard – a web based tool that permits vendors and developers to correlate information between any responses to any question, EMF presents selected insights from its analysis of the 2010 data. The Dashboard enables vendors to look at the responses of their customers (and potential customers) as well as to their competitor’s customers. This provides invaluable insights for strategic and sales planning. Developers can see what their fellow developers are considering in their selection criteria

 

Product opportunity windows are fleeting and time-to-market issues dominate design considerations. The two factors that invariably make the difference between success and failure are first, the knowledge that comes with an accurate insight into the internal and external forces which drive product markets and second, an insight into the concerns, desires and thought processes of those customers who make the decision to purchase a particular product or deal with a particular vendor.

 

The following data, taken from the 2010 EMF Embedded Developer Survey, addresses many issues of which embedded vendors and developers should be aware. The data presented here represents embedded industry averages across many application verticals, many vendors, many OSes, etc. Subscribers to the 2010 EMF Market Intelligence Program have access to their custom Executive Dashboard with which they can create unlimited cross tabs to further examine the data presented here.

 

 Criteria Most and Least Important to Developers in Selecting an OS

 

Developers were asked to indicate which criteria were most important to their decision in selecting an OS. The top (most important) responses and the bottom (least important) responses are presented in the following tables.

 

There was an interesting reordering of priorities in 2010 with cost remaining the principal factor. Realtime performance fell (no surprise here) and safety certifiable and virtualization remained as a small part of the collective consciousness of embedded developers.

 

 

Criteria most important for selecting an OS:         Top 8 Responses	2010	2009
Acquisition cost	44.6%	36.7%
Availability of source code	33.1%	26.4%
Microprocessor support	30.4%	22.9%
Real time performance	29.8%	34.8%
Compatibility with our development tools	27.6%	29.0%
Includes good development tools	26.6%	24.5%
Reliability	25.2%	31.1%
Compatible with Linux	24.1%	17.8%

 

 

Criteria Least important for selecting an OS	2010	2009
Supports virtualization	4.9%	5.1%
Preferred vendor or on company approved list	4.3%	9.1%
POSIX or SCA compliant	4.3%	4.9%
Provides memory protection	3.9%	4.0%
Security certification (such as Common Criteria or NSA)	2.6%	4.2%
Must not be based on GPL	2.6%	2.1%
ARINC 653 compliant	1.6%	0.7%
Subscription licensing available (annual or fixed term)	1.4%	0.9%
Response to RFP	1.4%	2.8%

You Better Design Right, You Better Not Fail, if You Don’t Follow These Guidelines Your CEO’s going to Jail; The FDA/CDRH is Watching You Now

(Sung to Santa Claus is coming to town)

 

Yes indeed – and it’s about time.

The FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH) reported that in 2006, 21% of all medical device recalls were for software defects – it is also estimated that one-in-three software-based products is recalled. They haven’t updated this data since, but one can assume that it might have gotten worse.

Medical device developers and company CEOs should be aware that this is an unacceptable situation and that it is going to rapidly change. Those that don’t get it straight won’t be around when the dust settles.

Is there enough aspirin to relieve the headaches that our government is giving medical device manufacturers? Moreover, is it deserved? The answer – depending on the specific question – is yes and no.

The Obama administration under pressure from Congress has combined the medical device industry with the drug industry as one, and has proposed taxing both industries to pay for universal health insurance (Obama Care). Hopefully thoughtful senators and representatives will see that these taxes will be passed down to patients and other users and will also impact the elderly who most require such devices and can ill afford them – then again it is more realistic to depend on the Easter bunny. But logic is no relief for the headache – particularly when it comes to Washington politicians. It’s no fun being a medical device executive today.

On July 31, 2008 a Senate Bill cosponsored by Senators Edward Kennedy (D – MA) and Chuck Grassley (R– IA) was filed that  would require senior officers or directors of drug and medical device companies to certify under penalty of perjury that all information submitted for a product’s approval is accurate and in compliance with federal regulations.

The Drug and Medical Device Accountability Act Bill expired at the end of the two year Senate session on December 31, 2008, but was refiled in the Senate (2009) with the hope of amending the current legislation by the end of October 2009. This is an important piece of legislation, and medical device executives should get their house in order to accommodate the provisions.

The Bill provided that product applications later found to have contained false or misleading information would be subject to stiff fines (up to $5,000,000), assessed both to companies and their senior officers, who, in addition, could face jail sentences of up to 20 years. These are serious issues. Currently the CDRH has a forensic group that looks at device software only after a device has been recalled.

This is a bad time, and a very costly time (regardless of the Act) for a medical device manufacturer – particularly if software development hadn’t been given the detailed oversight of using best practices. The new Obama tax on medical devices – used to pay for Obama Care – is allready a blow to the industry and to smaller medical device manufacturers.

The “Drug and Medical Device Accountability Act” will change the medical devices industry similarly to how the Sarbanes-Oxley bill impacted corporate accountability. Laws being what they are, we should expect overkill from its enactment. This is why medical device company’s senior management should take time to rethink their strategic approach to the delivery of their products.

EMF has available a report presenting alternative paths for developers to produce quality software for medical devices, minimize product recalls, and affordably provide comprehensive audit trails for CDRH inspectors (Critical Issues Confronting Medical Device Manufacturers). Keeping the company alive and your CEO out of jail are bonuses.

Fearless and no longer loathing in San Jose (with apologies to the late Hunter Thompson)

 

 

Dolores and I made our annual trip to the Left Coast to attend the annual Embedded Systems Conference last week. It was the best ESC West in many years – more booths; larger booths; good floor traffic; interesting announcements and new to embedded players.

 

I’m not sure how Rich Nass does it – but the keynote speaker was again excellent. This time Michio Kaku, the co-founder of string theory and TV science presenter was the speaker and was charming, funny (but Seinfeld can breathe easy), informative and delightful. We joined the mass exodus to avoid the obligatory hour dedicated for the Microsoft Embedded Group (aka MS Purgatory – otherwise known as We B Arrogant). Granted that Microsoft contributes a lot of $$ to these very important events – for which I am grateful – but give me a friggin break MS, Windows 7 is not the promised land for the embedded world.

 

This was the year that the chip companies made confessions of love to many OS companies. Freescale made announcements with such stalwarts as Green Hills, while Intel teamed with LynuxWorks for an ill chosen medical product. ARM was very impressive as was Microchip, while Xilinx ran away with the FPGA application announcements. Xilinx for the 7^th consecutive year (by EMF survey data) was the most used FPGA in the embedded space (and had the best ROI).

 

Green Hills also made a networking arrangement with Cavium (who recently acquired MontaVista and MV Linux) which caused us to ask if Dan O’Dowd (who has publicly claimed that anyone who used Linux was brain dead – or worse) had to be drugged or restrained to cut a deal with a Linux company. We checked the stock market for Prozac manufacturers to see if consumption was up in Santa Barbara. All chuckles aside – it was an excellent deal for Green Hills.

 

It surprised and impressed us that Green Hills made behind the scenes moves that portend for significant growth and positioning against Wind River by hiring two individuals that bring another dimension to the competitive marketplace that will be to their advantage. Although I’m not obliged to keep such under wraps, I do respect the Green Hills folks and will keep these details to ourselves – other than to mention that they are the first of the usual suspects to clearly see the light.

  Read the rest of this entry »

Failure is an Option – what Joe Biden should have said instead of dropping the F-Bomb

A few months back I gleefully reported what the voters of Massachusetts did for the medical device industry by electing Scott Brown as our new Senator. The US Senate had cobbled together a poor Health Care Bill in order to send it onto the House of Representatives assured that the Republicans would not win Kennedy’s seat and gain the blocking vote. It was, by admission of many Democratic Senators, a terrible bill – but that it would be cleaned up in a House-Senate conference. 

With Senator Brown finally seated it seemed to be a no-brainer that the Health Care Bill would have to be dropped or reconfigured as it would not stand a filibuster challenge.

I was one of those relieved given my concern for my beloved medical device industry which was going to be the scapegoat of the current administration and be severely taxed for no other reason than its name sounded a lot like the pharmaceutical industry. I felt that we had ducked a massive bullet.

The gross distortions in favor of forcing through the bill under Reconciliation were mind-numbing. How the public could be convinced that spending more than a trillion dollars would result in a “massive middle class tax reduction” and how could taking $500 billion out of Medicare “strengthen” it?

Here’s what has happened and what we might expect – how much more damage can Congress inflict before the November elections?

Read the rest of this entry »

 

 

 FIPS 140 (acronym for “Federal Information Processing Standard number 140”) is a US government standard, established by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), which specifies a series of requirements that must be met by an encryption module before it can be used in a Federal government system.  These requirements cover a range of subjects, from proper key management, to secure generation of random numbers, and from which encryption algorithms may be used, to module self-tests and error detection.

 

Put more simply, if a product performs encryption, the portion of that product which actually implements the encryption is the focus of FIPS 140. FIPS 140 is of interest to the embedded systems industry for several reasons:

 

First, under Section 5-131 of the Information Technology Reform Act of 1996 (Public Law 104-106), and the Computer Security Act of 1987 (Public Law 100-235), FIPS from NIST may be approved by the Secretary of Commerce and made binding to all Federal agencies.  FIPS 140 has been granted such approval, and therefore all Federal agencies are required to use FIPS 140-certified encryption to protect all sensitive information processed by all data processing systems, from embedded systems to mainframes.

 

This means that vendors cannot sell systems which use encryption to any Federal agency unless that system incorporates FIPS 140-certified encryption.

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Fanaticism consists in redoubling your efforts when you have forgotten your aim – George Santiago

 

 

Tough economic times create strange bedfellows. Does one need to purchase a technology, with its attendant costs and complications, when a lease or partner relationship would suffice? Do complimentary technologies and markets provide a return greater than the sum of the parts – or is the result characterized as “subtraction by addition?”

 

 EMF believes that embedded consolidation through acquisition will be the norm over the next few years as roll backs in DoD discretionary funding impact the larger purchasers.

 

 Let’s look to four recent acquisitions with an eye on compatibility, growth potential and whether there is a measurable outcome. Is this a trend, a lifeline or a passing strategic initiative – you decide.

 

 These include:

 

• IBM Rational buys Telelogic
• Intel buys Wind River Systems
• Cavium acquires MontaVista
• Artisan acquires Aonix

 

  Read the rest of this entry »