__/ [ Ray Ingles ] on Wednesday 06 September 2006 13:31 \__
> On 2006-09-06, Roy Schestowitz <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> Wind River Flying High With Linux
>
> The Windows CE people must be nervous. Microsoft really doesn't have a
> "value proposition" in the embedded space. Their OS is too heavyweight
> to work well on low-spec, low-power equipment.
True. Everything I read seems to suggest so, but only perception and FUD is a
hindrance to vendor independence. Moreover, there's all that IP FUD which
was reinforced in an interview with Ballmer earlier this year (scare
tactics), When put to the test since, it appeared to fail miserably, if even
be considered at all. And yes:
Developers ramp open source
,----[ Quote ]
| Embedded developers are increasingly turning to open-source tools
| for building reliable and flexible systems and software. Open-source code
| can provide both raw material for building system software and
| applications, and development tools for creating that software.
`----
http://www.eetasia.com/ART_8800427741_499485_4390b76020060801_no.HTM
This had Microsoft resorting to dirty use of tactics. What they do best --
marketing; what they have most -- cash.
Microsoft tempts embedded Linux developers with "free apps"
,----[ Quote ]
| Microsoft's Windows Embedded team will host a "free app" giveaway during
| LinuxWorld. The "apps" -- in this case appetizers -- include embedded
| turkey clubs ("it's the bacon that's embedded," Microsoft says) and
| boneless "penguin" wings ("hot and tasty, but with no support
| infrastructure"), plus free beer and wine.
`----
http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS2347855073.html
Microsoft is very aggressive (read: unethical) if all sectors. There are no
exception.
> Yes, the specs are getting better all the time. (My first Palm had a
> 16MHz 68000 w/8MB RAM - roughly equivalent to a higher-end Macintosh in
> the late 1980s. My current one is running a 300MHz ARM with 32MB RAM -
> roughly equivalent to a desktop in the mid-90's.) But until battery tech
> makes a major advance, power considerations are extremely important in
> handhelds and Windows CE just doesn't cut it there. It can't, having to
> support a large subset of the Win32 API.
This explains your long presence in the Palm NG's. Over the years I have
heard people criticising Windows CE for being a waste of energy. "Watch some
animations while wishing to get some actual work done"; "stare at a
brightly-lit screen while the battery juice is eaten away..."
Since the codebase is common, you would also expect the O/S to drain
resources for fundamental inefficiencies at lower levels. It's not just
application/UI design that's to blame.
Think about the Origami bloat. That product was a disaster. But Microsoft
doesn't want anyone to know the truth about the XBox 360, Vista, Tablet PC's
and soon enough the Zune. This can all be swept under the carpet, under the
investors' noses, merely by merging financial units and relying on cash cows
(blame lockins, e.g. interoperability, formats) to clear the gaps until they
automagically vanish.
'Market shares' intervention and so-called MS-funded 'studies' contribute ti
false perception.
> And the Windows interface doesn't scale down very well, either. It
> pretty much assumes a full keyboard and a 640x480 display - and gets
> cramped with anything less. There are physical limits on how many pixels
> you can stuff into a screen of a given size and maintain legibility.
> They've been evolving things but they still have an attitude of
> squeezing a desktop into a tiny space rather than adapting the
> environment to the actual conditions of the embedded space.
That's why one ends up with a laptop that has a stylus. They call it a tablet
PC. A collague of mine has one. Haven't seen it in almost a year because she
no longer appears to use it.
> Microsoft hasn't been particularly good at portable code, either. They
> tried with Windows NT and just couldn't do it. They now have *maybe*
> three ports of their main codebase depending on how you count (x86-32,
> x86-64, Itanium). They had to fork the code and write a whole different
> OS to work on things like ARM and Mips.
They are well aware of this. Have a look, Ray.
,----[ Quote ]
| What's noteworthy about it is that Microsoft compared Singularity toFreeBSD
| and Linux as well as Windows/XP - and almost every result shows Windows
| losing to the two Unix variants. For example, they show the number of CPU
| cycles needed to "create and start a process" as 1,032,000 for FreeBSD,
| 719,000 for Linux, and 5,376,000 for Windows/XP."
`----
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Murphy/index.php?p=459
> Linux is more efficient, scales better, and doesn't have to fork to
> support multiple architectures. It's also fully customizable (some
> source code is offered for WinCE, but nothing like the whole system) and
> is less expensive. Aside from PDAs, WinCE hasn't really gained much
> traction, and the main reason it got anywhere with PDAs was because
> people wanted them to sync with the desktop, and MS had a monopoly
> there. But PDAs are becoming smartphones now.
I think it was Daniel in one of the Palm NG's who said (paraphrase: "people
think that because the PDA has the same logo as that which is on their
desktop, it'll also communicate better".
Best wishes,
Roy
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