The technology for developing intelligent devices is catching on rapidly and offers a wide opportunity for IT companies, vendors, manufacturers and students. Ravindra S Datar says, make the most of it before the crazy gold rush starts

Welcome to the world of intelligent devices and automated living. The technology that makes your mobile phone such a versatile device, works hidden behind the jazzy exterior, on an innocuous looking chip, on which the necessary program is embedded. It is the same technology that helps a guided missile find its target and helps a motorist find his way home through the path of least traffic. This technology is enriching and automating our lives beyond what one could imagine just a decade ago. Three technological forces are driving the evolution of intelligent devices. On the one side, rapid miniaturisation of the chip size itself coupled with increasing processing power allows its use in applications unthinkable earlier, while the increase in storage capacity and evolution of programming techniques allows the use of these chips in multiple applications by way of embedding the necessary program on the chip. The third force that is driving the development of intelligent devices are the rapid strides that telecommunication technology is taking in the direction of getting rid of wires and towards interoperability of different platforms.

So what is all this brouhaha about embedded software? In layman’s terms, embedded software can be described as software etched on to a chip. It is also referred to as a ‘System on a Chip’. Embedded software is used in making intelligent devices for consumer, industrial and medical use. It forms the brain of the intelligent device in which it is used and is a no frills program focused on doing only a specific set of tasks required for that particular device. The device constantly interacts with the environment by way of audio, visual, tactile and radio sensors to perform tasks based on the decision making (logical or fuzzy logic) program embedded on the chip. The device takes very specific inputs from its usage environment, processes these and produces very specific outputs as per the design.

The inherent advantages of this technology are robustness, compactness of design and low power consumption. By virtue of being embedded on to the chip, the software becomes significantly immune to virus attacks and other bugs. The cost of the individual unit is reduced significantly as there is no need for separate storage and retrieval devices for the software. Embedding the software on the system’s chips also improves processing speed and allows miniaturisation. If the same hardware elements of the device can be used for multiple tasks, the device can easily be programmed for multitasking by adding those incremental instructions in the program.

Though the technique is not very new and has been in use for a long time in very niche areas, openness of consumer products manufacturers to experiment with the technology and further evolution in hardware and software technologies has contributed to the use of this technology in consumer devices. The technology for developing intelligent devices is catching consumer interest across the developed world very rapidly. With processing power of chips multiplying rapidly and chip sizes shrinking at a similar pace, intelligent devices that existed only in science fiction only a decade ago have suddenly become a very real possibility. The cost of acquiring the same is also falling rapidly enough to generate interest amongst potential buyers. This has triggered further research and development in this area. Progress on the concepts of standardisation of platforms, cross platform interoperability, modular programming (componentisation) and convergence of seemingly diverse technologies, has the promise to spur the development of intelligent devices at higher levels of comfort and utility.

In the industry for manufacturing intelligent devices, there are various possible business models. One would be the totally integrated model wherein the system design, programming and fabrication are all done in-house. Another possibility is a model wherein the system design and programming is done in-house and only the fabrication is outsourced. The third model would be wherein only the system design would be done in-house while the programming and fabrication is outsourced.

Typically, the fabrication part requires huge investments while the system design and programming typically do not demand investments as high as fabrication.

Initially, Indian companies could move into system design and programming areas and do outsourced work for the vendors of such products. Gradually, with increasing skills and confidence, companies could start fabrication operations as well.

With the huge talent pool that India has, the cost of developing embedded software would be comparatively lower in India than in the developed world, while a significantly higher margin can be charged as this is being used in life-style products. Even in case of developing embedded software for industrial and medical appliances and machinery, the products using embedded software for automation would command a premium over standard products.

The concept of embedded programming offers a potentially huge opportunity with a wide array of applications, for IT companies, vendors, manufacturers and students. Make the most of it in the early days before the crazy gold rush starts.

The author is principal analyst at AMC Gartner. He can be contacted at ravi.datar@gartner.com
( Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent the official Gartner opinion)