[Updated Nov. 12, 2004] — According to an article published at WindowsForDevices, Microsoft was ranked first in revenue in the 2003 embedded computing market by Venture Development Corp (VDC). However, Microsoft lost almost as much money as it brought in, in 2003's embedded market.

Historically, Wind River has been the clear revenue leader in the embedded segment. However, Microsoft's investments in embedded — coupled with competition to Wind River from embedded Linux vendors — enabled Microsoft to pull in more total embedded revenue for embedded operating systems, bundled products, and related services in 2003, the VDC report suggests.

Rounding out VDC's top five embedded vendors are PalmSource, Symbian, and Green Hills Software.

According to Microsoft's most recent annual report, the Redmond giant netted $247 million in the embedded segment for the fiscal year ended June 30, at the same time losing $224 million in the segment. Microsoft's embedded revenues amounted to less than a percent (0.67%) of the company's total revenues for the year.

MontaVista Software, which claims to lead the fledgling embedded Linux industry, probably brought in about $30M in fiscal 2003. In April, after accepting $7M in investments, MontaVista said it is nearing profitability, having turned “cash-flow positive” late last year.

A lead in overall revenue hardly suggests that Microsoft embedded OSes achieved more design wins than Linux (the two OSes appear to be neck-and-neck), or shipped in more total devices (Linux has shipped in a million DVD players, for example). Additionally, surveys consistently suggest that Linux is the top choice of embedded developers.

More details about the VDC report are available at WindowsForDevices.

Read VDC findings at WindowsForDevices.com

 
This article was originally published on LinuxDevices.com and has been donated to the open source community by QuinStreet Inc. Please visit LinuxToday.com for up-to-date news and articles about Linux and open source.