This whitepaper from VDC examines organizational changes at Freescale relating to wholly owned subsidiary Metrowerks. It confirms that Metrowerks will realign itself strategically with its parent company, with the Metrowerks brand replaced by the “CodeWarrior” brand. After detailing these and other changes, the paper offers VDC's analysis and perspective.

The Situation

After years of speculation, it looks like Freescale has figured out what to do with Metrowerks. The well-known tools company will be absorbed into the semiconductor giant. Motorola acquired Metrowerks in 1999, and ran it as an independent operating company. When Freescale was spun out of Motorola, Metrowerks naturally went with the processor side of the house.

The relationship between Motorola/Freescale and Metrowerks has always been awkward. The plan was for Metrowerks' Codewarrior IDE to support not only Motorola/Freescale processors but also those offered by other semiconductor companies. This created a strange situation where the goals of the tools company were not aligned with those of its parent company. Freescale is clearly trying to beat the likes of TI and Intel in the marketplace, but given its product line, position as a premium IDE, and support for a variety of processors from other vendors, Metrowerks was really competing head-to-head with Wind River and Green Hills.

That said, VDC would like to highlight some of the key changes that have been underway and will ongoing at Freescale:

Product Strategy

• The Codewarrior tools will support Freescale processors only.
• The Metrowerks name will go away and be replaced by “Codewarrior” as the technology brand for all related products.
• The individual pieces of the old Codewarrior bundle will be decoupled and offered individually.
• The company will be focusing on development tools and will offer a common Linux infrastructure for Freescale silicon.
• Freescale will be maintaining its online tools and components marketplace, DevTool Direct, as a way to offer its ecosystem partners a channel.

Reorganization

• Metrowerks (formerly) will become a team attached to the Design Solutions Group that reports to the office of the CTO. In the past, Metrowerks reported to David Perkins (former Metrowerks president at the time of the acquisition) SVP and GM of the Networking and Computing Systems Group (NCSG).
• Metrowerks will no longer have its own sale force. The Metrowerks and Freescale sales forces will be merged.
• The unit will be renamed. However, that name has not been chosen yet. Expect to see a change in the coming weeks.

VDC's View

Metrowerks has been cleaning house over the past year or so spinning off non-core products and services. This includes the sale of Symbian tools to Nokia and the sale of the MDP team to KPI Consulting. The current set of moves continues the process of aligning the goals of Freescale and the development tools group. The key here is that Freescale is in the business of selling chips to OEMs and all of its resources should be supporting that objective, not its competitors. The absorbing of Metrowerks into Freescale will further clarify its role in relation to Freescale in eyes of developers and project managers who might have been confused about buying tools from one semiconductor manufacturer to support a processor from another.

While VDC has reported Metrowerks as the leading supplier of IDEs to the embedded market, its position has slipped over the past few years leading VDC to conclude that a major change would be coming. VDC believes that Freescale, in the form of substantial NRE and internal consulting contracts, has heavily subsidized Metrowerks. In previous bulletins VDC suggested that Freescale would eventually support the Eclipse framework and while that has not happened yet, we continue to believe that it is inevitable given the ascendancy of Eclipse in the embedded market.

On the whole, VDC believes this is good move for all concerned and will position Freescale to better compete in the marketplace. There is little downside here given the pressure that Metrowerks unit is under in the tools space. Clearly something needed to be done and this move is the most logical. The Embedded Systems Industry Bulletin is published is support of VDC's “Embedded Software Strategic Market Intelligence Program.” VDC has been providing embedded systems market intelligence for 20 years. Published by Venture Development Corporation.

The Embedded Systems Industry Bulletin is published is support of VDC's “Embedded Software Strategic Market Intelligence Program”. VDC has been providing embedded systems market intelligence for 20 years. Published by Venture Development Corporation. Copyright 2005, all rights reserved. Reproduction in any form whatsoever is forbidden without permission.

 
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