The commercial embedded software market is worth $3.2 billion, according to Venture Development Corp. (VDC), which has shared some data prepared by VDC analyst Chris Lanfear for a late-May presentation. The commercial market does not include the non-commercial, in-house embedded software market, which VDC believes is much larger than the commercial market.

The following chart gives VDC's perspective on the total commercial embedded market, which in VDC's view includes operating systems (OSes), other platform-level software components, application software, tools, and related services.

Embedded opportunity is substantial. Source: VDC

As indicated in the chart, the commercial embedded market (not including in-house embedded projects) represents a $3.2 billion dollar market. Of that, tools and components together account for the largest value, at $935 million, followed by services, at $928M, and the OS itself, at $675 million.

According to VDC, Microsoft ranks first in revenue from worldwide shipments of embedded operating systems, bundled products, and related services. Traditional RTOS (real-time OS) vendors such as Wind River, Green Hills, and Enea also rank high, while consumer handheld OS suppliers PalmSource and Symbian score near the top as well. MontaVista, the top vendor of embedded Linux, rates seventh overall.

Worldwide shipments of embedded operating systems, bundled products, and related services, segmented by leading vendors (in rank order based on percent of dollar volume). Source: VDC

VDC sees the embedded OS market consolidating, and also converging, with OSes gaining more real-time capabilities and more graphical interfaces and development environments. At the same time, various embedded OSes still retain their traditional characteristics and strengths, as shown by the clever infographic below.

Competition is consolidating, converging. Source: VDC

VDC has identified several high-growth opportunities within the embedded market, including consumer electronics, telecom, military/aerospace, and automotive. It lists MontaVista among the top-tier technology providers in both the consumer electronics and telecom spaces. Additional fields of opportunity include industrial automation, office automation, and the medical industry, according to VDC.

VDC is an independent market research and consulting firm that has served the technology industry for more than 30 years.

 
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