Why is arm doing internet for things?

Arm just released soon mbed OS by many commentators to expect, this arm first touch "soft" products, is believed to change the existing IoT fragmented pattern, the achievement of a unification development environment.

But in contrast, insiders are less interested. Lei Feng Network interviewed including the original chip, application vendors, individual developers and many other experts, most of the comments are focused on: mbed OS reservations, wait and see under the good.

There are several reasons, the most important one is: arm does not pull the whole ecology.

Whenever do platform, must pull some partners, mbed OS need to drive is the chip original and developer. But in yesterday's arm of the annual Technical Forum, exhibitors of the chip manufacturer does not have a cold. St., Amtel two told Lei Feng Net, they will be launched next year Q2 will launch the CORTEX-M7 chip support mbed OS, but no large-scale support intention. The mbed OS on the CORTEX-M7 chip is just an option, both of which offer multiple options.

One St technician said there was no mass push because the mbed OS had no obvious advantage over other existing development environments. The other side believes that IoT is unlikely to have a unified environment, which is related to the fragmentation of the field. such as Arduino in Amtel, each manufacturer has its own operation for many years of development environment, how can arm these different interest-oriented vendors assembled in the mbed OS?

More importantly, the mbed OS is less appealing to developers. mbed OS originated in the mbed SDK released last year, there are now 30 balance mbed Development Board. However, an exhibitor told Lei Feng, in the recently held a marathon event, the organizers for the contestants, including mbed to provide a variety of development boards, but only one of the dozens of projects using mbed Development Board, mostly in the Arduino Development Board. Because the mbed Development Board is mainly the chip factory periphery in the push, they do not have the large-scale promotion plan for the developer, that mbed ecology Basic will be difficult to fall to the ground.

In the eyes of the application vendor, mbed OS is another view. Some people in the industry explain why the Internet fragmentation is due to the different needs of the equipment, the system needs. The tiny devices on the internet are extremely demanding, and any little extra power wasted energy is hard to tolerate, how does the mbed OS adapt to such a wide range of requirements? If only do collect, transmission and so on the most basic function, that mbed OS to arm does not mean much, an enhanced version of the RTOs core can not become the next "Android".

At the forum, Arm described the vision of the next 20 billion devices carrying Mbed OS, and now it needs to be more clearly planned. How does the company, which has long long been a IP-core design, make a software product that is likely to be more successful than the previous hardware business, from hard and soft?

(Responsible editor: Mengyishan)