Microsoft Linux embedded development cost PK

Article Title: Microsoft's Linux embedded development cost PK. Linux is a technology channel of the IT lab in China. Includes basic categories such as desktop applications, Linux system management, kernel research, embedded systems, and open source.

With the increasing complexity of embedded system development, the development cost is also increasing. Therefore, it is of great significance for embedded vendors to greatly reduce the complexity of development and achieve low-cost development. Generally, embedded devices are highly integrated software and hardware. the software platform consists of software development tools and development integration environments. If a development platform fails to be selected, re-selection often wastes a lot of manpower, material resources, and time. More importantly, it will delay the product release time, which is undoubtedly a heavy blow.

Recently, our new generation of embedded devices are faced with the choice of development platforms. The company has organized several development departments and related technical personnel for discussion. At the conference, supporters of Windows Embedded and Embedded Linux platforms argued with each other, and their views remained at the same level. Which development platform can effectively reduce the complexity of development, reduce product costs, and speed up marketing? On this issue, the two camps often face "public opinions and opinions". we may wish to make a comprehensive comparison. This article analyzes in detail the key points of the selection of Embedded platforms, and then analyzes a question that many developers are concerned about in combination with the speeches at the seminar: What is Windows Embedded compared with Embedded Linux, who is more competitive in development costs?

　　Article 1: competition in total development costs

(1) Free Embedded Linux VS commercial platform tools

In the field of embedded platforms, Microsoft's position is undoubtedly very important. However, Linux not only inherits the technical characteristics of Unix, but also shares the commercial mechanism of open source code with Microsoft, which has always been closed, and won the praise of many supporters. Free and open source embedded Linux is now a hot topic in the embedded field. many small manufacturers are using free embedded Linux development products to save development costs. They think that Linux is free, so the development cost will be much lower, although they also admit that it must spend a lot of resources and time to turn it into a usable commercial product. Some people may think that they can buy a commercial version of Linux from suppliers such as Wind River, monavista, and Red Hat. but in fact, the commercial version of Linux is not cheap, and the cost of Windows Embedded is not much different in many cases.

For an embedded product, the cost from development to batch listing is roughly composed of three aspects: development platform and development tool fee, product License fee, and various hidden costs in the development process. Linux is free of License fee for the product License fee, and Windows Embedded is subject to License fee. Aside from the technical differences, the cost of the development platform can be divided into: Free Embedded Linux, commercial Embedded Linux and Windows Embedded. From the perspective of platform cost economics, Open Source Linux is undoubtedly the most attractive because it is free, while other commercial platforms (such as Windows Embedded and VxWorks) and for commercial Linux, you must pay for it.

The embedded development platform can be divided into two types from the business model: In-House platform (developed and maintained by various manufacturers) and commercial platform. For a completely free embedded Linux platform, developers are required to modify and maintain the basic version on their own because of their different application fields and requirements, so as to form different versions, this is no different from embedded development tools In-House. In this regard, developers need to have a very clear understanding that the vendor is developing embedded devices for end users, rather than spending a lot of time and cost on modifying and maintaining the Linux platform. Therefore, although many people think that free Linux can save costs, it actually requires more invisible maintenance costs.

Therefore, after intense debate and analysis, we agreed at our company's seminar that, for the technical strength of our company, free Embedded Linux does not meet commercial requirements such as commercial rapid development, high reliability, and low-cost maintenance. Of course, this conclusion also serves as a reference for many embedded device developers. For the Development of an embedded product, we need to be aware of the Total Development Cost ("Total Cost of Development"), rather than simply viewing the Cost of the product's entry license, this is also a basic principle for choosing an embedded software development platform.

(2) development Cost Comparison of Linux VS Window Embedded

From the past, we can see that the evaluation of the total development cost, which can help embedded vendors evaluate the overall cost spent on software development. Here, we will refer to and reference a model and data proposed by the well-known Market research institute Embedded Market Forecasters, which is: TCM = TTM x NOE x CPMM. Among them: TTM (Time to Market) is the Time from the product development to the Time Used to go public, in the unit of month; NOE (Number of Engineers Used) the number of developers required to develop the product. CPMM (Cost Per Man-Month) is the monthly fee required by each developer. According to the survey, the average TTM of the Windows Embedded Platform is 8.1 months, while the average TTM of the Embedded Linux platform is 14.3 months. The former is 43% faster than the latter. According to the number of developers, the average number of developers required for each product on Windows Embedded Platform is 7.9, while the Embedded Linux platform requires 14.2 developers, the former is 44% less than the latter. The average monthly cost CPMM for developers of the two platforms is assumed to be the same. Therefore, the cost of the Windows Embedded Platform is about 1/4 of that of Linux, and the development cycle is shorter. The main author of the report, Dr. Jerry Krner, explained the difference so much: windows Embedded is more mature, has more functions, adopts the component-based design method, has the integrated tool set, supports parallel development workflow.

Once this conclusion is published, it can be said that one stone stirred up a thousand waves. Supporters of embedded Linux have come out to debate and question it. People who are keen on embedded Linux think that the evaluation method of the development platform should be to accurately measure all the factors in the development work. Although TTM and TCM are indeed very important factors, if only one or two indicators are used for measurement, the results must be one-sided. We will not comment on the conclusion that Windows Embedded has the advantages of "traditional Chinese" (total development cost) ", but the TTM and NOE data are real survey data, it has some reference value for choosing a development platform.

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