The technology industry is replete with TLAs (three-letter acronyms). Two years ago, Wind River added one more, coining the term “Device Software Optimization” (DSO) as a replacement for the term “embedded software” in its marketing efforts. Why did the company decide to make that change?

To find out, LinuxDevices.com spoke with John Bruggeman, the Wind River executive generally credited with launching the DSO initiative. Bruggeman obliged us with an animated definition of the term, along with its etymology, history, and generally how it came to be. Enjoy . . .

Q1. What is Device Software Optimization (DSO), and how does it differ from embedded software development?

A1. We don't think “embedded” and “DSO” are the same. We don't think it's marketing spin or name-changing. We think there's a fundamental shift in the marketplace, a shift driven by end users, or customers of devices. These customers have two fundamentally different requirements.

The first is rich content, delivering media, voice, data, and convergence, in applications that delight the end-user. This is not just in media devices, either. It's across the board, in telecom, in datacom, ATCA, aerospace & defense — we see it everywhere.

[The second thing end-users demand is] connectivity. All types of connectivity. Secure connectivity. People want access to content-rich applications that are securely connected to all kinds of crazy things. They want this in a volume that's greater than it has been in the past.

The traditional approach to enabling content-rich applications [is not scalable]. It requires a new approach, and a new process. That's what we've, for the last two years, called DSO.

There are three components:

• Number one, developers of these devices need to stop doing so much of it themselves. It's not a vertically integrated, in-house do-it-yourself system. They want commercial off-the-shelf. They want an application-enabling platform that's commercial grade, reliable, maintainable, supportable, cost-effective, and well-performing.
• Number two, they want that solution to adhere to open standards. Whether real-time, near-real-time, consumer, and so on… so they have choice. So they have the right solution for their requirement, and know that they have the flexibility to change, depending on device requirements.
• Number three, they want to work with solutions that are globally supported. Where global ecosystems of partners are available. They want a multi-vendor solution with support available around the world, around the calendar, around time.

Commercial, open standards, multi-vendor — those are the three tenets of DSO.

Q2. How did the term DSO come into being?

A2. Here's how I believe this happened. We rolled DSO into the market as a term at ESC [the Embedded Systems Conference] two years ago. When Ken [Klein, Wind River CEO] and I joined the company, we had no biases or prejudices, because we came from outside the industry. We had a huge download period for several weeks. We learned what our customers were doing, and we said, “This is not embedded systems.” It needed a name.

So we started brainstorming. One of our field marketing people, or a product marketing person, came up with it. The customers were already doing it, we just gave it a name.

We announced it at ESC. But now it's not only our name — others are starting to use it, too.

There you have it — the definition, history, and purported benefits of Device Software Optimization, aka DSO, straight from the horse's mouth.

Additionally, on Wind River's website, the company lists the following components of its “seven part strategy” for DSO . . .

• Standardization of technologies, tools, and processes across the enterprise
  
• Embrace of open standards
  
• Reuse of intellectual property
  
• Operating system agnosticism
  
• A broad ecosystem of hardware and software partners
  
• Services and support, available globally, delivered locally
  
• A flexible, enterprise-wide licensing model

Getting the ball rolling?

Since Wind River rolled out DSO two years ago, two key players in the — pardon the term — embedded software industry have also begun using “DSO” in their marketing vocabulary. Those companies are Green Hills Software and ENEA, both of which are vendors of proprietary real-time operating systems (RTOSes).

ENEA CEO Johan Wall recently offered LinuxDevices.com Enea's DSO definition in an exclusive interview. Regarding rumors of an effort to form some sort of DSO Consortium, Wall commented, “The industry leaders we've been talking to and the contacts between us and various parties in the industry have been very well received.”

John Bruggeman, Wind River's chief marketing officer, oversees the company's product planning and management, corporate marketing, and field marketing. Prior to joining Wind River in February 2004, he served as vice president of marketing at Mercury Interactive Corporation, where he “successfully revitalized the marketing organization by defining and creating a new category space,” launching “a new sales enablement model focused not on products, but on enterprise-wide solutions.” His earlier marketing positions were at Alventive, America Online, Netscape, Lucent, and Octel Communications. Bruggeman holds a BS in statistics and computer science from San Jose State University and a MS in mathematics from the University of Connecticut.