a techfocus media publication :: August 28, 2007 :: volume VIII, no. 09

FROM THE EDITOR

This week, European Editor Dick Selwood chats with Christopher Smith, VP of Marketing at Green Hills Software.
Smith talks about the hazards of complacency in embedded systems development and the consequences of that mindset. 

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Kevin Morris – Editor
Embedded Technology Journal

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Mediocre Embedded Systems?
by Dick Selwood, Embedded Technology Journal

“Over the last twenty five years, the general public have become self-conditioned to accept mediocrity in software-based electronic systems.” Christopher Smith, VP of Marketing at Green Hills Software, feels strongly that, not only in consumer electronics, but in other embedded and enterprise areas, there is complacency, not just among the users, but also among the developers. He fears that only something on the level of a catastrophic failure of public infrastructure will shake the industry and its customers out of that complacency. He spoke to European editor, Dick Selwood.

ETJ. When you say that the public are conditioned to accept mediocrity, what do you mean?

CS. Let me turn the question round. Have you bought some electronic equipment, found that it had software bugs and didn’t live up to your expectations, and thought, “Well, it wasn’t expensive, what do you expect?”

ETJ. Well, there was a set top box that had to be rebooted every week or so…

CS. Exactly. The public has become slowly conditioned, often through experience with their own purchases, to accept (or even expect) that if something is inexpensive, then the low price probably equates to cheap bill of materials, a cheap build, and flawed software. But what is worse is that the system developers and the programmers have also become used to thinking that software shipped in production equipment will always have bugs. And systems developers are not always aware of the real costs and the damage to their corporation of shipping mediocre products. [more]

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August 27, 2007

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MIPS Technologies Acquires World's Leading Analog Intellectual Property Company

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August 27, 2007 (continued)

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August 24, 2007

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August 23, 2007

Accellera Approves Functional Design Verification Standard

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August 22, 2007

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