Analyst tallies worldwide embedded software developers
Apr 9, 2004 — by LinuxDevices Staff — from the LinuxDevices Archive — viewsEver wonder how many embedded software developers there are in the world? We did too, so we asked respected embedded industry analyst Paul Zorfass, of research firm First Technology Inc. (FTI). Here's what we learned . . .
Software engineers are responsible for programming a variety of semiconductor parts from small address spaces of 4-bits to wide address spaces of 64-bits. The products and devices range from high volume products that are characteristic of consumer electronics, office automation, and automotive to low volume products such as industrial automation, medical, and network infrastructure equipment. High volume products generally have lower engineering hours per unit shipped, while lower volume products have higher engineering hours per unit shipped.
The engineers represent geographies on a worldwide basis, but fundamentally come from the four major economic blocks of: United States, European Union, Japan, and China. There are varying Gross Domestic Products (GDPs) that represent the productivity of the individual blocks. Interestingly, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) also characterizes individual countries with a Technology Achievement Index (TAI) that potentially influences a country's workforce in regard to embedded software engineers. It is not surprising that the countries with the highest TAI scores in order are: Finland, United States, Sweden, and Japan.
In order to calculate the embedded engineer software census for 2003, these multiple characteristics were used and normalized to take account of differing currencies, harmonizing of classification systems for product shipments, and diverging values of GDP and TAI. A linear programming model formed the integrative and unifying shell for the diversity of variables.
The result of the model at a worldwide level is the embedded software engineer census for 2003 of: 608,494 embedded software engineers.
Copyright © 2004, First Technology Inc. (FTI). All rights reserved. Reproduced by LinuxDevices.com with permission.
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