High-end edge servers are revolutionizing operational environments and creating substantial value for both OEMs and end users. Most notably, this includes their ever-growing capacity to process large volumes of data locally… Learn more

AI integration has emerged as an avenue for competitive differentiation across the software world. Large Language Models (LLMs) have demonstrated their ability to effectively produce and augment code. While still imperfect and known to ‘hallucinate’ in response to open ended prompts, many AI models can write code with high levels of confidence… Learn more

This week, at Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), the company announced several new developments, led by their anticipated entrance into the Artificial Intelligence space… Learn more

Embedded World is the premier event on the calendar for IoT, embedded, and edge computing technology and solution providers to showcase new offerings for engineering organizations of all types. Held annually in Nuremberg, Germany and with an additional event being held in the U.S. in October 2024, Embedded World is a unique event bringing together hardware suppliers, embedded software and tool providers, industry experts, cloud services, and end users to share and learn about new technologies and capabilities for industrial, enterprise, and other environments. Learn more

While ambitious goals to utilize generative artificial intelligence (AI) to automate the writing of code have gained popularity with recent advancements in AI, engineering functions elsewhere within the software development life cycle (SDLC) may prove to be better suited for near‑term deployment of AI. User competency issues and security vulnerabilities remain considerable barriers to widescale use of generative AI coding tools.Learn more

The first Intel Foundry Direct Connect event took place this week and VDC Research was on hand to learn about the biggest implications to the IoT and embedded market. There were several key announcements made during the event on February 21st including the launch of Intel Foundry — Intel’s System Foundry approach to enable full-stack optimization for the AI era. Bleeding-edge process technologies are typically most focused on datacenter/hyperscalers, HPC, digital models, and enterprise AI applications. Learn more

With the growth of the software-defined vehicle (SDV) and advancements in electrification across the mobility space, over‑the‑air (OTA) updates have emerged as the go-to method for both the maintenance and enhancement of in-vehicle software and features. Both innovators such as Tesla and NIO, as well as their legacy counterparts in GM and Honda, have adopted OTA as a way to remotely improve customer satisfaction, delivering new capabilities and features to vehicles as well as carrying out critical functional fixes or security patches to vehicle drivetrains and infotainment systems. Learn more

Initially adopted within the mobile phone industry and spreading across the consumer electronics market, over‑the&8209;air (OTA) updates have emerged as an effective solution to maintaining IoT systems and devices in the field, enabling the remote deployment of feature enhancements and patches to device firmware, software, configuration, and operating system (OS). Learn more

By nature, autonomous cars amplify cybersecurity stakes. If hackers compromise a self‑driving car’s internal computing network, its safety critical components (brakes, gas, transmission, headlights, etc.) can become exposed. Fully automated fleets will be prime targets for ransomware hacks. In the future, crucial freight and trucking infrastructure will depend on automated systems. Learn more

The COVID‑19 pandemic introduced numerous complications for embedded projects, resulting in severe delays in production times. Government-mandated lockdowns and similar company policies resulted in many engineering teams suddenly working remotely from home. With no contingency plan in place for such an unprecedented set of circumstances, many distributed teams were left with little to no local access to the physical hardware they required to continue development of their projects. Learn more

Venture capital (VC) and private equity (PE) have focused their sights — and their wallets — on the cloud-native development market, seeking to reap the rewards of the potential for an industry‑wide shift among software developers as they transition from traditional local development towards development performed in the cloud. Learn more

Engineering organizations are investing their time and resources looking into a variety of technologies to streamline the product development process while increasing innovation, eliminating waste, reducing costs, maximizing resources, and limiting their carbon footprint. This will allow businesses to gain competitive advantages and win industries. One of those technologies, digital twins, share growing synergies with other technologies, such as generative AI, 3D interface design, Internet of Things (IoT), metaverse, augmented reality (AR), and virtual reality (VR). Learn more

On October 4th of 2023, PTC (NASDAQ: PTC) announced the acquisition of Germany-based pure-systems, a leading vendor of product line engineering (PLE) tools through its pure::variants solution. PLE solutions provide variant management capabilities to manufacturers, enabling them to efficiently share engineering assets across product families, greatly reducing development time and costs. Learn more

Cybersecurity concerns loom over the increasingly targeted healthcare sector and other connected industries. Attacks can cost health networks millions of dollars and compromise patient care. Beyond healthcare, downtime of manufacturing lines, utilities, and other connected infrastructure can be devastating. As a result, law makers, industry participants, and standards organizations and consortia are rapidly shaping IoT’s security future. Learn more

Arm (NASDAQ: ARM) launched its IPO on Thursday (September 14th) with an initial price of $51, opened trading at $56.10, and ended the day at $63.59. This translated into a fully diluted valuation of roughly $67.9B while raising nearly $5B for SoftBank, still 90% owner of the company. Arm is the largest company to enter the public markets this year, which has seen a dearth of IPO interest amid economic uncertainty. Learn more

On July 18th, the White House announced the rollout of a new program targeting IoT device security. Under this new initiative proposed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and expected to go into effect in 2024, IoT device manufacturers will be able to voluntarily enroll in and apply for the “U.S. Cyber Trust Mark.” The program will enable manufacturers to place this stamp of approval on their devices, advertising to consumers the sound security features found within. In order to achieve this certification, manufacturers will need to address basic security concerns that have plagued the IoT. Learn more

During his keynote speech at LiveWorx 2023, PTC (NASDAQ:PTC) CEO Jim Heppelmann emphasized the company’s software&8209;as&8209;a&8209;service (SaaS) strategy, laying a roadmap for a widespread cloudification of the company’s portfolio. Learn more

This week, PTC hosted its LiveWorx event, a trade show and convention focusing on digital transformation and product lifecycle innovation, in person for the first time in four years. PTC covered a plethora of company-specific and industry-wide topics, including recent acquisitions, product updates, agile product development, the industrial metaverse, and service lifecycle management (SLM). SLM is a crucial aspect of product lifecycle management (PLM) and PTC’s lifecycle management platform strategy, as SLM helps OEMs and service providers maximize service revenue by utilizing a product’s engineering and manufacturing information for service planning and implementation. Learn more

Public key infrastructure (PKI) has long played a critical role in the security of the Internet. With the rise of the Internet of Things (IoT) and the exponential growth of systems and devices connecting to the Internet and communicating with each other, a need for unique, comprehensive, and adaptable PKI solutions has been spurring a flurry of M&A activity within the PKI market over the past few years. Learn more

Last week, MediaTek hosted its annual Analyst Day event in Austin, TX to discuss the company’s key growth areas and strategy for the future. While we can’t share everything we learned throughout a day of detailed presentations, roundtables, and 1:1 interviews with executives, MediaTek’s plans for diversifying its business across vertical markets and geographies has already been on full public display. Learn more

At this year’s RSA Conference in San Francisco, artificial intelligence was the hot topic. On one hand, industry participants were concerned about the potential of AI, for example, to write better malware or craft more effective phishing emails. On the other hand, vendors were positioning themselves to leverage AI to improve cybersecurity defenses. AI has become an impetus in an escalating cyber arms race between attackers and defenders. Learn more

Manufacturers of DTC wearables have begun to seek blended device approval, gaining FDA clearance for certain features within their devices without going through the lengthier process of seeking complete clearance or approval of the entire device. Whether or not a consumer wearable requires any level of FDA regulation depends on its intended use. General wellness products, such as step counters or fitness trackers, are outside the scope of FDA regulation. However, when devices begin to make claims of diagnosing, monitoring, or treating medical conditions, they fall under the definition of a medical device. Learn more

Manufacturers of medical devices face a plethora of regulatory standards from multiple entities and agencies. ISO 13485, IEC 62304, and UL 2900 are just some of the international standards that regulate all levels of the medical device supply chain, addressing key requirements such as quality and risk. While the FDA previously relied upon suggested best practices for the cybersecurity of medical devices in the form of guidelines, the agency has recently taken a far more proactive approach to regulation. Learn more

Originally developed as a research project at UC Berkeley in 2010, the RISC‑V ISA has since sparked a considerable amount of interest and use in captive and merchant/commercial processing applications. In 2015, the non‑profit RISC-V Foundation was created to establish an open‑source development network for this new ISA. Developers across the world expressed their interests in the RISC‑V platform, which eventually sparked the incorporation of the RISC‑V Foundation in Switzerland in March 2020, which is now called RISC-V International today. Learn more

Last week, VDC Research attended the Embedded World 2023 conference in Nuremberg, Germany and held dozens of face-to-face meetings with exhibitors. Following a barren 2020 and relatively muted attendance last year, Embedded World 2023 was a clear indication that this industry is a small step away from back to normal conference and tradeshow attendance and activities. The halls were packed and bustling like times of old, with everyone sharing a sense of relief and rejuvenated appreciation for in-person events, meetings, and connections. Learn more

Athletic organizations across the world have begun to view IoT devices and the data they can glean from them as an important factor in optimizing player performance, mitigating injuries, and increasing fan engagement. Learn more

VDC’s IoT staff was back in Barcelona for MWC for the first time since 2019. This year’s attendance continued to rebound from the COVID‑19 pandemic, and was 88,500 participants, compared to 61,000 in 2022, after the 2019 peak of nearly 109,500. Learn more

Automotive cybersecurity is set to become a key feature in software-defined vehicles, with a variety of standards emerging to ensure the safety and security of connected vehicles. Functional safety standards, such as ISO 26262, have been implemented across the automotive industry, but cybersecurity has only recently been addressed. Both safety and security play an important role in securing various imbedded systems, and satisfying different functional safety standards increasingly requires proportional investments in security. Learn more

Software development will be a key battleground for the automotive industry in order to support the push towards autonomous vehicles (AV). A focus on automation, connectivity, electrification and sharing will drive automotive trends forward and significantly influence software development. A standard software architecture is necessary for mitigating the largest obstacle to the development and growth of the connected vehicle industry, which is the complexity of automotive systems (see Exhibit 1). Learn more

Mobile analytics are quickly becoming an essential part of everyday life in the modern world. With businesses and people looking to become the most efficient versions of themselves, the ability to analyze strengths and weaknesses is vastly important. Whether its businesses looking to shave off minutes of downtime to ensure maximum productivity or social media analyzing user data to produce an individualized platform, analytics have a strong hold on how we experience our everyday lives. With the current transition into smart solutions, data on how to best run these new technologies will be critical moving forward. Learn more

The global raw materials and chip shortage continues with us in Q2 2022, exacerbated by a variety of cross‑industry issues, geo‑political forces, and the economic consequences of a stubborn pandemic. An extreme shortage of semiconductors occurred as a result of spikes in demand for consumer electronics, electric vehicles, sensors, and connected devices in general. Skyrocketing raw materials prices and natural disasters have worsened the situation, forcing embedded processor suppliers to consider tradeoffs involving pricing strategies and severe capacity constraints. As a result, most of the executives of leading embedded processor market players forecast similar semiconductor supply‑demand deficits to persist beyond 2022. As the supply chain crisis grows more complicated, so too do its implied solutions, and VDC Research subsequently sees the interrelated chip shortage continuing into 2023. Learn more

Back in 2020, RSA was the last conference I attended—and the last tech industry event to occur—before the COVID‑19 pandemic shut down nearly all large public gatherings. Now that many events have resumed, RSA 2022 in San Francisco is the first conference that I’ve attended in more than two years. (And not having left the Eastern US time zone in the interim, I apparently forgot that jet lag was a thing.) This year’s RSA included more than 26,000 attendees, compared to 36,000 in 2020, and 42,000 in 2019. Although the aisles were notably less crowded than pre‑pandemic, even with less exhibit space occupied, there was still plenty of activity. Learn more

On November 2, 2021, Digi International announced that it had acquired Ventus Holdings, a managed network‑as‑a‑service provider, in a cash deal for $347M. The price tag, by far Digi’s largest acquisition ever, raised some VDC analyst eyebrows, as it exceeded Digi’s total annual revenue of $279M for FY2020. Only time will tell if the purchase price was a good value for Digi, but VDC sees a range of synergies between the companies that will undoubtedly be of benefit to Digi. Learn more

The growth in IoT device connections will rapidly accelerate over the next five years and will push OEMs and solution providers into unfamiliar wireless domains. While established wireless communications such as 3G and Wi-Fi support many IoT workloads today, others such as LTE-M, NB-IoT and 5G are gaining ground and will be critical technologies through the next five years. Learn more

AI has proliferated throughout many different environments, including the embedded space, which features unique deployment considerations and market opportunities. Learn more

In order to serve the growing number of organizations adopting DevOps practices in their software development pipelines, IBM and GitLab announced an expanded partnership to help automate the delivery of cloud-native applications. Learn more

The development of containers largely originated from Linux-based operating systems (OSs), making Linux the essential groundwork for the vast majority of modern container deployments, including Docker containers and those orchestrated through Kubernetes. Learn more

2020 has been a year of tremendous change for most everyone including the global market for IoT, embedded and mobile processing solutions. Earlier this week, AMD announced it had entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Xilinx in an all‑stock transaction valued at $35B — just below the record‑setting acquisition of Arm by NVIDIA for $40B announced just over a month ago. Learn more

The evolution of device functionality continues to expand performance requirements of software. In turn, software becomes more complex year after year. Meanwhile, the surge in organizations adopting Agile and DevOps redefines their approach to software development with rapid release and testing cycles for faster time to market competence. Learn more

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused delays in manufacturers’ supply chains across business segments, stopping several key consumer facing industries in their tracks. The automotive sector faces particular financial losses due to factories temporarily shutting down to mitigate the spread of infection, as well as slackened demand for new car purchases during the pandemic. Learn more

The acquisition of Cypress Semiconductor by Infineon Technologies closed today and continues a prolonged period of embedded processor market consolidation. The takeover was not without a few bumps along the journey ending roughly 10 months after Germany’s Infineon announcing its intent to acquire Cypress for €9 billion. Learn more

The commercial market for RISC-V has established a firm foothold in embedded processing. The open-source RISC-V instruction set architecture has been a hot topic for the past couple of years and continued to be a couple of weeks ago in Embedded World as highlighted in our VDC View covering the event. Learn more

For the past several years, CES has been a premier showcase for automotive technology. In this gallery of photos, we highlight selected automotive and transportation infrastructure exhibits from the big show, as well as the GO-NV transportation summit and technology showcase event hosted by the Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada, just prior to CES on the campus of University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). Learn more

In the first week of the new year CES once again invaded Las Vegas, and among the vast range of products and services was a plethora of automotive and transportation-related technology. (See a forthcoming VDC View document for a broader overview of automotive and transportation tech at the show.) Learn more

Digital twin technology has the potential to revolutionize urban development in a future striving for greener technologies and more efficient energy use. Although the concept has been around since the early 2000s, the practical application of digital twin technology has just begun to sprout in the real world. A digital twin is a simulation of a real life product, service, or process. Learn more

VDC attended MWC Americas recently, the third instantiation of the regional MWC event that saw over 22,000 attendees converge in downtown Los Angeles for the three-day show. Keynotes Included LA Mayor Eric Garcetti, FCC Chariman Ajit Pai, and Director General of the GSMA Mats Granryd, among other key individuals within the telecom space. Learn more

Last week, Xilinx hosted its 2nd Xilinx Developer Forum (XDF) Silicon Valley event in San Jose and it featured some important news announcements, a wide variety of different breakout sessions and hands-on developer labs, and insightful presentations from industry veterans. Learn more

After a brief lull in semiconductor M&A, Infineon Technologies has announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquired Cypress Semiconductor for an enterprise value of €9.0 billion (~$10B). Infineon has increased its market share in the embedded microcontroller (MCU) market by nearly 40% through the merger while at the same time establishing a foothold in the marketplace for system-on-chips (SoCs). Learn more

TensorFlow is among the most popular open source frameworks for machine learning (ML) but its leadership is under siege. Produced by Google, TensorFlow has been adopted by numerous companies including Airbnb, Arm, Intel, Lenovo, Qualcomm, and Twitter. The platform is known for its easy model building, flexibility to provide models individually or together, and live training for customers, among other features. Learn more

VDC attended IoT World 2019 in Santa Clara, a four-day event attended by a diverse mix of startups and established embedded players in the IoT ecosystem. The event hosted 12,000 participants with keynote speakers including Bask Iyer (CIO of VMWare/Dell), Michael Sherwood (Director of Innovation for City of Las Vegas), and Greg Kahn (CEO of the IoT Consortium). Learn more

On April 18th, Microsoft announced the acquisition of Express Logic, a San Diego-based embedded software company, for an undisclosed sum. Learn more

The embedded processor landscape is undergoing a dramatic transformation that is redefining the bounds of discrete processing. While the global markets for discrete embedded MPUs, GPUs, DSPs, and FPGAs push on, other processing solutions are absorbing the majority of new socket opportunities. Learn more

At this year’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, IoT products and services were less prominent than in recent years, as the spotlights this time shone primarily on 5G networks, and to a lesser extent on Microsoft’s second generation Hololens glasses for augmented reality. Nevertheless, IoT was ever-present, blending in like an accepted member of the wireless family. Learn more

Every year, Nuremberg, Germany becomes the epicenter for embedded technology with all of the industry’s most influential players coming together to roll out new products, announce game-changing collaborations, and show off innovative solutions. Last week’s conference featured more than 1,100 exhibitors from 52 countries and many use Embedded World as a platform to communicate new critical developments for their businesses to the 32,000+ trade visitors and 2,200 conference participants. Learn more

Amazon Web Services (AWS) showed no signs of slowing down during its annual re:Invent conference and analyst summit, held at the Venetian in Las Vegas this past week. The company presented a “condensed” list of over 55 new services during the re:Invent analyst summit, narrowing down the announcements due to feedback that the 70+ services announced last year were tough to digest. Learn more

Microsoft and Amazon are locked in a battle to shape the future of computing with their cloud services platforms. Both companies are building out global networks of datacenters and enticing customers to purchase compute-as-a-service as a more flexible alternative to maintaining and scaling infrastructure in-house. Other large software and industrial players — GE, Google, IBM, Oracle, PTC, etc. — have joined the cloud services fray, but when it comes to horizontal IoT cloud services, Microsoft and Amazon are strategic leaders and industry trendsetters. Learn more

Among software developers, Canonical’s Ubuntu Linux distribution is widely known and used, especially on servers for the web and cloud. (The Ubuntu operating system is free and open-source, with Canonical generating most of its $126M revenue in 2017 from Ubuntu-related software licensing, maintenance, support, and managed services.) Learn more

On July 11th, Broadcom Limited riled the tech industry with their surprising purchase of enterprise software company CA Inc., in a massive $19B all‑cash deal. Taking many by surprise, the announcement rapidly led to negative sentiment towards Broadcom as many were quick to question the deal. Broadcom in the past has made headlines for notable acquisitions, such as their attempt at a takeover of rival Qualcomm or Brocade Communications. But no such deal has created an uproar compared to this one. Learn more

IoT, Blockchain, and AI — 3 of the hottest terms in technology — drew a crowd of 8,000 in Amsterdam for the annual IoT Tech Expo Europe. Executives from the Bluetooth Group, Rolls Royce, and Shell all delivered keynotes explaining IoT’s role in the European industrial landscape. Thales, PTC, Microsoft, Ruckus, 1NCE, Device Authority, and DevicePilot were among the sponsors and exhibitors for the event. Learn more

Without competitive software, even the most advanced industrial PC (IPC) hardware will be left behind in the industrial IoT. As industry 4.0 advances, IPC manufacturers are being forced to adapt their offerings, tooling, and support to embrace the IIoT. Most IPC manufacturers are quickly expanding their strategic alliances with various software vendors, boosting the abilities of their hardware offerings in order to meet the needs of smarter and more connected industrial environments. Learn more

In Part 1 of our NIWeek 18 blog, we featured an overview of some software-focused product announcements from National Instruments: LabVIEW 2018, LabVIEW NXG 2.1, and FlexLogger. In Part 2, we continue the overview with a look at InstrumentStudio and SystemLink. Learn more

The VDC embedded team was recently in Austin, Texas to attend NIWeek 2018 – National Instruments’ 24th annual conference. For a broad overview of this show, please see the related VDC View from Dan Mandell “NIWeek 2018: Instrumenting Industries for Intelligence.” As always, the event brought together leading customers, thousands of engineers, and other industry experts to hear the latest announcements and highlights of NI’s role in supporting cutting-edge test and measurement deployments. Learn more

In the early days of the IoT, many industry participants had assumed that nearly all IoT device data and sensor data would be sent to the cloud for storage and analytics. As large scale implementations began to run, the sheer volume of raw data generated by IoT systems made it apparent that significant portions of data needed to be filtered and/or pre-processed to reduce the volume of data sent to the cloud, as well as latencies that might occur in sending and processing data in the cloud. Thus the concept of IoT edge computing was born. Learn more

AWS showcased its constantly-evolving services portfolio at its 2 day AWS Summit London, a regional conference supplementing its annual flagship re:Invent in November. Day 1 centered around AWS developer and startup education, while day 2 featured a keynote by CTO Werner Vogels and UK & Ireland Managing Director Gavin Jackson. Learn more

This interview is part of an ongoing series VDC conducts with IoT and embedded solution providers to share views on their company, products, and state of the market. At Mobile World Congress in February 2018, the new company 1NCE announced a cellular-based NB-IoT communications service for the revolutionary price of only 10 euros for 10 years of service with up to 500MB of data transfer. Learn more

This interview is part of an ongoing series VDC conducts with IoT and embedded software solution providers to share views on their company, products, and state of the market. Nils Herzberg is the Global Head for the Go to Market Strategy for Internet of Things & Strategic Partnerships. Reporting to the General Manager for IoT & Digital Supply Chain, he drives major elements of SAP’s partnership strategy, customer strategy, and OEM strategy as well as focus scenarios, market units, and industries. Learn more

VDC analysts Chris Rommel and Roy Murdock attended IBM’s new flagship conference Think 2018, held at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. IBM rolled a few of its previous conferences such as InterConnect, World of Watson, Amplify, Edge, and PartnerWorld into one mega conference attended by almost 40,000 customers, partners, and executives. Learn more

In Part 1 of our MWC18 coverage, we featured info from the Mobile IoT Summit, and VDC’s pick for our Embeddy Award from the show. In Part 2, we highlight a selection of notable vendors on the trade show floor, as seen by VDC’s Roy Murdock and Steve Hoffenberg. Learn more

At this year’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, IoT products and services took a giant leap forward. Unlicensed spectrum LPWAN products and services for IoT communications (such as LoRa, Sigfox, and Ingenu) have been available for several years. In prior years, offerings for licensed spectrum IoT services such as LTE Cat-M1 (a.k.a. LTE-M) and NB-IoT were mostly in the discussion and demo stages. Now, the sheer volume of announced IoT wireless modules and services for the licensed spectrum has ramped up, and many are already on the market. Learn more

Last week, the embedded engineering community migrated to Nuremberg, Germany for the 16th annual Embedded World conference. Embedded World is the epicenter of the IoT and embedded technology conference calendar with all of the global juggernauts coming together in one place to launch new products, unveil strategic collaborations, and set the future of embedded engineering. Learn more

VDC Research attended the Embedded World 2018 conference in Nuremberg, Germany through three days during the week of February 26th packed full of face-to-face meetings with dozens of exhibitors. This year’s event was the 16th Embedded World conference and it continues to grow as the leading exhibition for global IoT and embedded technology providers. 1,021 companies from around the world exhibited throughout 6 massive halls and showcased to more than 32,200 embedded experts from 78 countries. Learn more

VDC Research attended the Embedded World 2018 conference in Nuremberg, Germany through three days during the week of February 26th packed full of face‑to‑face meetings with dozens of exhibitors. This year’s event was the 16th Embedded World conference and it continues to grow as the leading exhibition for global IoT and embedded technology providers. 1,021 companies from around the world exhibited throughout 6 massive halls and showcased to more than 32,200 embedded experts from 78 countries. Learn more

Embedded Tech Trends 2018 highlighted several important trends impacting the markets for critical and intelligent embedded systems. Embedded Tech Trends is an annual business and technology forum where technology suppliers and media come together to discuss technology advancements, standards, and other important topics for anyone developing boards, systems, and software for critical and intelligent embedded computing. This year’s event was hosted last week in Austin, Texas with a focus on the “biggest technologies and brightest solutions” behind high performance computing problems in mission‑critical environments. Learn more

In Part 1 of our post about CES 2018, we looked at the rise of automotive technology at the show. In Part 2, we’ll discuss how and why consumers adopt smart home technology. And we’ll do so through a specific lens: five different products we saw at CES that can monitor and/or control the flow of water through the pipes. Unlike a Nest Thermostat or a Samsung Family Hub Smart Refrigerator, most visitors will never know these plumbing-related products are installed in the home. They have no bling value. Just to reiterate, we’ll be discussing these products as examples primarily to help illustrate the reasons consumers purchase smart home devices. Learn more

The CES trade show in Las Vegas covers a lot of territory, both literally and figuratively. In more than 2.75 million square feet of exhibit space in venues across Las Vegas, the show organizer Consumer Technology Association created 27 “marketplaces” devoted to topics such as Augmented Reality, Baby Tech, Drones, Fitness, Gaming, IoT Infrastructure, Robotics, Sleep Tech, Smart Cities, and so on. Notably absent from the list, however, was Automotive, which might lead an outside observer to believe that such a market wasn’t represented. On the contrary, the Automotive market had a huge presence at CES 2018. Learn more

The IoT is fueling wireless connectivity innovation and driving ecosystem development of new technologies such as low-power wide-area networks (LPWANs). LPWANs are suited for IoT devices transmitting and receiving relatively small amounts of data over long distances (a kilometer of more) and or long periods of time (5 to 10 years, often relying on battery power). Learn more

AWS announced its intent to enter the IoT & Embedded operating system (OS) market today by taking stewardship of the popular FreeRTOS operating system from WITTENSTEIN high integrity systems (WHIS). FreeRTOS is a small, MCU-focused Real-Time OS that has gained wide adoption since its release in 2003 as an alternative to paid options. Learn more

The surge of consolidation VDC expected would reshape the software composition analysis (SCA) solution market advanced in earnest with the announcement Synopsys (NASDAQ: SNPS) intends to purchase segment-leading Black Duck Software. The deal, expected to close in December 2017, mirrors the 2014 acquisition of Coverity, which netted Synopsys the revenue share leader of a rapidly expanding test tool market segment. Synopsys first entered the SCA market by acquiring Protecode in 2015. Other M&A activity in the sector include the Flexera Software acquisition of Palamida and the purchase of Veracode by CA Technologies. Learn more

Last wee’s Arm TechCon conference highlighted many trends affecting the development of embedded systems and IoT solutions today. Security, distributed intelligence, and scalability took center stage and were the driving factors behind two of the biggest announcements from Arm at the event: the launch of its Platform Security Architecture (see Steve Hoffenberg’s blog on that announcement here) and Mbed Edge software for IoT gateways. The latter is in response to the growing importance of IoT gateways in current and emerging connected solution architectures. Learn more

As the world’s leading provider of semiconductor intellectual property, Arm is in a unique position to help secure the tens of billions of devices that will be coming to the Internet of Things. And in light of the numerous high profile security breaches that have occurred over the past year, it should come as no surprise that security was the major focus of the 2017 Arm TechCon conference in Santa Clara, CA. Learn more

VDC headed out to Las Vegas last week to grab a seat at SAP’s annual developer conference, TechED 2017. SAP held the conference in the massive Palazzo convention center, with the focus of the conference centered on SAP platform developer education and outreach. CTO Bjoern Boerke kicked off the conference with a Star Trek themed keynote, introducing his crew of speakers in the classic attire of the USS Enterprise. Bjoern states that a small team at SAP chose the theme to convey the bold move to “boldly go where no man has gone before” and lay the foundation for today’s SAP Cloud Platform. Learn more

Device management is part of the foundation of an IoT solution. “Device management” is also an overly simplified term in light of the IoT where preserving embedded software and security integrity means greater control throughout the lifecycle. However, enabling scalable and secure IoT device management today still requires a fair amount of engineering time and investments to build — even on top of “building blocks” provided by IoT and cloud services providers. Device management and monitoring are not functions that translate easily between connected device classes, vendors, and use cases but remain critical to all of them. Learn more

Industrial PCs (IPCs) are evolving and gaining more market traction from the Internet of Things to enable connected applications and services. IPCs are by no means new but the growing IoT solution requirements for distributed processing, connectivity, and security are breathing new life into the device class. Beyond more traditional embedded control applications, IPCs are helping fill the gap between intelligent “things” and edge servers or the cloud. Learn more

The network edge is a critical element to enabling 5G applications and services. While no one knows for certain which mix of 5G technologies, frameworks, and standards will be at the core of next generation networks, the edge is an area brimming with market opportunities today. Trends such as Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) and Fog Computing are causing OEMs, service providers, network operators, and others throughout the IoT and embedded ecosystem to reevaluate their network architectures and data models to position themselves on the front lines of competitive differentiation and services delivery. Learn more

Most people probably know that Japan-based Hitachi is a large corporation, but they probably don’t realize just how large it is. In its fiscal year ended March 31, 2017, Hitachi Ltd. had worldwide revenues of 9.16 trillion Japanese yen (about US$82 billion), making it one of that nation’s 10 largest companies. Larger than Sony, Panasonic, Softbank, or many other well-known Japanese technology brands. Hitachi is also old, founded back in 1910, originally to produce electric motors. Learn more

At the inaugural Mobile World Congress Americas trade show and conference (formerly the CTIA Wireless show), attendees wound their way around the ongoing construction at San Francisco’s Moscone Center to find an event notable smaller than its MWC mother event in Barcelona. Nevertheless, IoT-related products, services, and conference sessions were prominent and plentiful. Learn more

The Internet of Things is now a staple of competitive strategies for both embedded platforms and IT solutions alike. The recent merger of Kontron, a leading global provider of embedded technology, with S&T Deutschland Holding AG (S&T) is critical to the company regaining its foothold in the market. Kontron designs and manufactures embedded boards and systems spanning a swath of form factors. The company is a pioneer in the computer-on-modules market and remained the leading global supplier in 2016. Learn more

Apple released its long-anticipated AR tracking and recognition SDK, ARKit, at its 2017 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) last Monday. Many in the AR industry had anticipated the release for quite some time, given Apple’s 2015 acquisition of leading AR SDK provider Metaio — a German company incubated within Volkswagen in 2003. Until last week, Apple had remained content to play at the mobile hardware, OS, and application distribution levels, shuttering all licensing of Metaio’s SDK and tracking solutions, along with the popular insideAR conference that Metaio had organized since 2006. Learn more

We were in Austin, Texas this week for National Instruments’ annual conference, which brings together thousands of engineers, scientists, and industry professionals from a variety of backgrounds. NIWeek is a showcase of how the organization is accelerating development and increasing productivity in test, measurement, and control systems using its platforms. This year’s show was full of exciting new announcements and customer demonstrations of new technologies at the forefront of 5G and the Industrial Internet of Things. Learn more

This interview is part of an ongoing series VDC conducts with IoT and embedded technology providers to share views on their company, products, and state of the market. In part one of this blog, Majid touched on the evolving IoT threat landscape and how open source communities are crucial to securing embedded platforms. Learn more

This interview is part of an ongoing series VDC conducts with IoT and embedded technology providers to share views on their company, products, and state of the market. Majid Bemanian is Director of Segment Marketing for Imagination Technologies, responsible for driving the company’s strategic security initiatives and leading its market strategy for the networking and storage segments. He also co-chairs the prpl Foundation’s security working group, focused on developing open standards and APIs around next-generation embedded security solutions. He has more than 30 years of high-tech industry experience. Learn more

Amid presentations from senior executives and demos from partners, on May 3rd Intel invited dozens of press and analysts from around the world for Autonomous Driving Day, literally rolling up the garage door on its new autonomous driving engineering facility in the former Altera building in San Jose, California. Learn more

This interview is part of an ongoing series VDC conducts with IoT and embedded software solution providers to share views on their company, products, and state of the market. Parasoft is unique in our support of embedded, IoT, and enterprise IT markets, providing broad testing support for developers and testers – static and runtime analysis, unit testing, API testing, load testing, penetration testing, security testing, virtual test environments via service virtualization, and intelligent reports and analytics. Learn more

In a city like London, where there are five airports for travelers to choose from, airports need to optimize the experience they provide flyers. Travelers are accustomed to interactive displays for announcements, kiosks and electronic check-ins, and weather and delay updates via smartphones. So then, how can airports continue to improve? To be competitive, they will have to become “Smart Airports.” Learn more

Embedded World is without a doubt among the most important annual events for the engineering ecosystem. Each year, more than 30,000 visitors and 900 exhibitors descend upon the historic city of Nuremberg, Germany to discover new embedded technologies and solutions spanning the gamut of industry applications. The conference itself continues to grow year-over-year bolstered by burgeoning IoT solutions within automotive, building automation, communications, energy, white goods, and more. Learn more

VDC director Steve Hoffenberg and analyst Roy Murdock made their way through the crisp, chilly (19°F!) Boston Monday morning to Cambridge to attend the MIT Connected Things 2017 conference. As usual, the event took place in the MIT Media Lab, giving attendees a spectacular view of the Boston skyline and the Charles River during breaks throughout the day. Learn more

The tech world is at a point of unparalleled change. You've heard that phrase, or things similar to it, in just about every year since the Dark Ages. Walking around MWC, however, something did feel different this time. Yes, there was a lot of hype and even a healthy sampling of good old fashion vapor&8209;ware. But there were real tangible products, customer deployments and the beginning of some fundamental shifts in the vendor ecosystem structure. Learn more

At the RSA Conference, one of the annual kickoff events is the Innovation Sandbox “Most Innovative Startup” competition, in which 10 cybersecurity startups vie for the title. Each competing company has three minutes to present their case before a panel of expert judges and a room packed with thousands of attendees. (When we say three minutes, we mean exactly three minutes. A countdown clock is visible to everyone, and when it reaches zero, a loud buzzer sounds, cutting off any presenter that is still speaking.) Learn more

Steve joined GE in September 2015. He reports into GE Digital and is based in San Ramon, CA. He serves as the Core Product Marketing lead for Predix — the Industrial IoT Platform. As a ‘go-to-market’ expert, he has launched multiple products in the mobile and enterprise infrastructure markets. He has held senior roles in both public and private companies in the US and UK. Learn more

Once again the annual consumer electronics lovefest known as CES invaded Las Vegas. With more than 3,800 exhibitors occupying 2.6 million square feet of floor space (not to mention numerous private meeting suites), the show seemed more overwhelming than in past years. We couldn’t possible see it all, much less sum it all up in a blog post, but we’ll briefly highlight a few themes.Learn more