Natick, MA — (press release excerpt) — Despite the current slow economy, the future looks bright for the embedded systems industry. Recent research by Venture Development Corporation into the top consuming markets for embedded operating systems, development tools, and other software components shows that, while current market conditions are not strong, many key consuming industries and applications are… still forecast for fast growth through 2006.

“Certainly the economy is not hot right now, but if you look at the long term, many consuming markets have strong fundamentals and strong growth drivers going forward,” says Chris Lanfear, Industry Analyst in VDC's Embedded Systems Research Group. “We see networking, multimedia and the shift from proprietary software to commercial solutions as key themes driving growth through virtually all the key consuming markets.”

VDC's research into the consumer electronics industry highlights the tremendous opportunities available to embedded systems suppliers. A confluence of changing technology, government regulations, and industry standards are combining to drive the market.

For example, the television industry is undergoing a number of changes at this time. First, U.S. government regulators are planning to turn off analog television in 2006. In addition, the FCC is mandating that set top boxes be available for retail purchase by 2005, the industry is also moving to standardize around Java, and interactive TV is just starting to take off. The result is high demand for digital television sets and set top boxes, as well as tremendous amounts of investment into innovation and building out these technologies for consumer use.

Leading consuming markets for embedded software solutions include:

1. Automotive
   
2. Consumer Electronics
   
3. Industrial Automation
   
4. Military/Aerospace
   
5. Office Automation
   
6. Telecom/Datacom

“VDC sees opportunities for embedded software providers who are able to respond to changing technologies and market forces quickly, while providing their OEM customers with solutions that speed time-to-market and result in quantifiable savings,” said VDC's Lanfear. “The breadth and depth of this industry makes it, while not immune from a slow down, certainly more resilient than many others.”

The title of VDC's new embedded market study is Vertical Markets and Applications Analysis. Findings are based on surveys mailed and emailed to developers of embedded systems, interviews with engineers, product managers and CTOs at OEMs, leading software vendors and third-party service providers, as well as, extensive secondary research. VDC's research includes a global forecast of unit shipments for select high volume applications in the leading vertical markets for embedded software solutions through 2006.

---

 
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.