Electronics Weekly puts its questions to an industry figure: John Bruggeman is chief marketing officer at Wind River, the real-time operating system and development software company.

What are the main drivers in the real-time operating system (RTOS) market?

There are two main trends right now in the development implementation of real-time operating systems, these are the growth of multi-core hardware and the attraction of both application and hardware consolidation. In aerospace systems it is typical to see four chips replaced by one, or in automotive 100 engine control units replaced by just four. 

On the software side there are millions of lines of legacy code in the market. Users want to keep legacy code but they also want to do new development in the same environment. That is the software challenge.

Is software keeping up with the move to multi-core systems?

Multi-core hardware is not delivering on its promises and in many respects it is the software which has been the problem. Hardware guys pushed forward and the software did not keep up. This is now our biggest area of development investment. We have made major developments in runtime, for both AMP and SMP environments, and the analytics to support multi-core systems. I believe multi-core hardware and software developments are now at the same level.

How important is Linux and move to open-source environments?

Growth of Linux went faster than anyone thought it would. For us the Linux business has grown from zero to $50m in 24 months. Most of our Linux customers originally experimented with free software and then they discovered the hidden costs.

There are two big challenges in embedded system development; the fact that there is no standard middleware and the increasing complexity of hardware systems. 

I have seen two phases to the adoption of Linux. First, people chose open-source route largely on cost grounds. Then they discovered the hidden investment which was required to implement it. So now we see people coming back and saying they want a commercially supported solution. I have seen 100s of examples of this in the last 12 months.

What is your view of Nokia's recent open-source move based on the Symbian OS?

In my view this is massively important to the mobile industry. The Symbian OS has 60% market share in the smartphone market with Microsoft a distant second. But Nokia sees Symbian losing share to Linux-based mobile Internet devices.

Now Nokia has made its open-source move, but maybe it is too late. Linux has already taken hold.
It is definitely a warning signal to Microsoft, but it is the start of a two year initiative for Nokia and it may be too late. Two more years of Linux could see it with 20% of the phone market.  

I know how difficult the move to Linux and an open-source environment can be for a software company. We did it five years ago and it was one of the hardest decisions we as a company had made. For us it has been successful, but it was a long journey.  

Name another important UK market for Wind River?

Safety-critical systems, in aerospace/defence, industrial and medical, are hugely important to us as a company and particularly here in the UK. In fact some of the best designers of safety-critical systems and our biggest customers in this area are here in the UK. 

You can hear John Bruggeman’s keynote speech at the Open Source in Mobile (OSIM) conference, 17 September, Berlin, Germany

See also: Q5 - Interviews with electronics industry leaders
Read all the Electronics Weekly Q5 interviews. From ARM's chairman, Sir Robin Saxby, to touchscreen technology firm Zytronic's MD, Mark Cambridge, the business leaders share their particular insights on the UK electronics industry.