A FEW weeks ago, the British government’s chief scientific adviser, John Beddington, made a bloodcurdling speech about the horrors lying in wait for us. By 2030, he said, the world will be facing a perfect storm of food, energy and water shortages caused by population growth and exacerbated by climate change. James Lovelock, the creator of the Gaia theory, receives extensive, largely uncritical, coverage when he predicts that global warming will have wiped out 80% of humankind by the end of the century. In the meantime, we are living through what many people believe (and some hope) to be the final collapse of capitalism, while attempting with only limited success to fight a “global war on terror” against an enemy that threatens to destroy “our way of life”.
There is nothing new in society being gripped by anxiety about the present and pessimism about the future. In his latest book, Richard Overy, a distinguished British historian of the second world war, has turned his attention to the period between the wars when, he argues, the presentiment of impending disaster was even more deeply felt (and perhaps with better reason) than it is today. Indeed, Mr Overy sets out to show that it was a uniquely gloomy and fearful era, a morbid age that saw the future of civilization in terms of disease, decay and death.
In the above fragment The Economist is leading us to compare the Between-the-war Britain experiences with those of present crisis. It also suggests that we have worse.
2009/04/18
Not everyone suffers in the same way, as M&T says
Insert to the recent issue of Markt&Technik Quarterly Distribution & Dienstleistung quotes:
-Silica quotes 20% reduction in orders in Q1 2009 as opposing Q1 2008
-MSC Gleichmann was down 30% on the same period
-EMS Industrie was still 35% (networking)20% (telecom) down
-while Zollner recoded only 7% reduction.
One of our Distributors in Netherland has even sent us its newsletter titles "Crisis...?" The question mark is significant as this is the largest distributor in the country.
Acromag has recently introduced it new and strategic product the IO Server and we have already projects involving long term applications across EMEA.
Many distributors talk about time to make changes. Fewer new products perhaps but More focus on those products, more complete solution and services geared to move itself up the supply chain. Only wide open eyes, focus on paying customers and perserverence is the prescription for today and for tomorrow.
-Silica quotes 20% reduction in orders in Q1 2009 as opposing Q1 2008
-MSC Gleichmann was down 30% on the same period
-EMS Industrie was still 35% (networking)20% (telecom) down
-while Zollner recoded only 7% reduction.
One of our Distributors in Netherland has even sent us its newsletter titles "Crisis...?" The question mark is significant as this is the largest distributor in the country.
Acromag has recently introduced it new and strategic product the IO Server and we have already projects involving long term applications across EMEA.
Many distributors talk about time to make changes. Fewer new products perhaps but More focus on those products, more complete solution and services geared to move itself up the supply chain. Only wide open eyes, focus on paying customers and perserverence is the prescription for today and for tomorrow.
DARPA pay for system to see inside concrete building
Recent news from CNET has brought us new and interesting project from DARPA. The national R&D State Purse is funding R&D on novel ways of looking inside the concrete buildings, including basements. Forget about the privacy,the "my house my castle" etc. and such medieval passè notions.
It should allow to detect human and presumably animal presence inside the concrete structure at a resolution of up to 1 yard (approx. 1m). At the same time it should differentiate presence of women and children for those of insurgents. How is it going to do that with above resolution is not clear at this point. At least an effort is being made to lower the collateral damage.
I am very found of other DARPA projects, specifically the driver less car, able to drive around random and moving obstacles. That was fun last year watching even car makers amongst many university and private enterprises. Something is moving in the right direction. GM, Mercedes-Benz and Honda are probably leading this field.
This technology for sure is going to lead to fewer deaths on the road.
This DARPA funded technology could be used also in buses, lorries, trucks and possibly other means of transportation.
It should allow to detect human and presumably animal presence inside the concrete structure at a resolution of up to 1 yard (approx. 1m). At the same time it should differentiate presence of women and children for those of insurgents. How is it going to do that with above resolution is not clear at this point. At least an effort is being made to lower the collateral damage.
I am very found of other DARPA projects, specifically the driver less car, able to drive around random and moving obstacles. That was fun last year watching even car makers amongst many university and private enterprises. Something is moving in the right direction. GM, Mercedes-Benz and Honda are probably leading this field.
This technology for sure is going to lead to fewer deaths on the road.
This DARPA funded technology could be used also in buses, lorries, trucks and possibly other means of transportation.
2009/04/13
Embedded World in Nürnberg-the 2009 Edition
As every year two months into a 2009 some 20 000 people, experts in Embedded Systems gather to attend the show, to visit suppliers, potential vendors, hear what is the newest and most-in in Embedded Systems Industry. Rich conference program, international industry leaders gather to present and discuss especially in this year also industry problems and strengths,
The show is a going success story ever since it was moved from Stuttgart and onto this medieval trading post on cross roads from Moscow to Paris and from Scandinavia to Rome.
Some dry facts may shed the light on its role in Europe: Almost 700 Exhibitors, over 40% from 31 countries makes it truly international. The display area reached this year 16 000 m² (160 000 sq ft).
This year Embedded Award paid tribute to especially innovative products in the categories of hardware, software and tools that are unique and future oriented. Prize-winners:
Category software: Coverity (Bolean Satisfiability: Next Generation of Static Analysis)
Category Tools: Express Logic (Eclipse-based IDE for Embedded Development)
Category Hardware: Texas Instruments (Leadership in Ultra-Low-Power Space MSP430F5xx)
Besides that the conference featured 20 Hands-on Classes and 24 Sessions. On the side and in a nice addition an Electronic Displays Conference took place at the same time.
The writer is participating in each years edition from early 90’s and it is easy to say that the show is getting more and more international. It is a top notch High-End knowledge transfer and exchange place.
Sessions were particularly interesting and considering circumstances well attended. They included, Network and Wireless technologies, Multicore Processing and Memory in Embedded Systems. In addition Cryptography and Embedded Security is pulling small crowd. GUI and System-on-Chip are now a staple fair for developers. Large group was addressing Automotive Applications, still, but we all know how the industry is suffering, and their suppliers must account for delayed or for now cancelled projects. Some positive success is Inova Semiconductors, as Robert Kraus (CEO) is mentioning the new project with APIX his company did for BMW 7range. More cars/models will certainly follow soon.
Interesting announcements and papers presented was on cPCI Plus: Intel was talking about Serial Buses and their role for cPCI+. There were several
EW is comparing positively to both CeBIT (20% attendance drop) and to Hannover Messe which is expected to gather as much visitors as in the year 2007 (according to Mr. Pech). It is true that some big companies, especially from US were missing this year. Some have shared both with local distributor, like GE Fanuc. Fortunately start ups and foreign companies filled halls with own wares.
Joe Primeau, Sales Director at Acromag was very pleased with this year’s outcome. “We work with our partners in EMEA for over 20 years. This year we are showing a new PMC based modules with advanced
customizable Virtex-5 FPGA with PowerPC on it. New solution for off-loading the CPU and saving on power consumption and adding on flexibility in resource usage. Conductive cooling extends greatly the range of suitable applications. We have made the show extremely productive for us and for our partners. We have conducted our International Sales Meeting EMEA in the elegant Grand Hotel Le Meridien with all Channels participating. It is The Show-to-be in EMEA, we are definitely going to be back next year”.
Ulrich Gehrmann, (Chairman) was stressing the importance to Kontron, of the Embedded Server business acquired last year from Intel. The deal stresses close relationship to Intel and positions Kontron on the top of a much selected list of companies with access to the CPU technology.
Olga Sinenko, CEO of RTSoft, in frank conversation said: “We have been at Embedded World almost every year, we see changes and we see progress, even now. Our market position is very good, the crisis, it must be acknowledged is hurting some of customers. Over all we have indentified several new markets we are expending into and are moving in right now, we support our loyal markets and we try to be helpful as much as we can. We see a serious growth in those selected segments of our market now.
Mads Poulsen, CEO of RECAB: “we are here because we meet vendors here, competitors, channels and some of our clients as well. It is a great show for this industry”. Sure RECAB has also shows closer to home that are used to meet customers and draft a common road map for future projects very like the shows here.
This idea of Messe as a means of drawing common future between Vendor and End User has its roots perhaps in medieval time markets in Central Europe. Manne Kreuzer of Markt&Technik, a German language Embedded Weekly makes his case and argues the reason why most successful world trade exhibitions are German based. He claims that Messe (German for show or exhibition) is the place where “common future of similar minds” is that reason for success. According to some the difference is that Messe is really a Fair, where one can place and take orders. Having exhibited for over 20 years in EMEA the writer tends to agree that Messe is something more that Fair, this is why meetings here take much longer than the usual 15 min. calls. Why there are back rooms for private chats with well supplied bars, hot sausages, sandwiches, beer or Sect and much more. There are even boat parties on the Rhein (as in Düssledorf Fair) next to a Fair grounds, with bands and paid entertainers. All geared to cater the customer. Messe is where Vendor reassures End User/ OEM that his Road Maps superimpose on OEM’s needs for years to come. And apparently Germans excel in that as success of their Fairs proves. It must be something in that I would agree. Embedded World in Nuremberg is such a fair in its prime regardless of crisis.
True, some vendors have cut on expenses this year, the red Ferrari has disappeared from my friend’s booth, some beer dispensers, pop corn machines also, less freebees available for take home, only one (British) vendor was giving balsa model planes for free. Every one much watch expenses on this hour, media have been less visible. Some large vendors are missing this year, mostly from States, who used to come each year.
Another obvious thing is coming out while meandering between vendor booths: proliferation of standards. It see every vendor tries to create and peddle his “open standard” to others. Some new standards are feeble solution; many lack the required eco-systems and fail to reach a critical mass to launch successful growth.
Stackable USB is a good example, promoted by a strong vendor, who is seeking to propagate the so far a specification instead of a standard. But miniaturization is the daily subject and part of the future of any standard.
One technology still in search of a market is uTCA. Many vendors present at EW argue that NOW they DO have projects and have found suitable Application. But even those biggest ones have admitted privately they repeat the same claim for 4 years running. I could understand the technology is looking for application first couple of years, but 4 years? It is complex, offering much more that we see in specs from the industry, redundancy, high availability and hot swap it is nice, but it is too much for still sufficient technologies that are either cheaper or easier to implement, without all the Management “Over”-Layer.
All in all, I am looking forward to this year of turbulences, fiascos and successes, and to the next year edition of Embedded World in Nuremberg.
Stefan Baginski
March 2009
The show is a going success story ever since it was moved from Stuttgart and onto this medieval trading post on cross roads from Moscow to Paris and from Scandinavia to Rome.
Some dry facts may shed the light on its role in Europe: Almost 700 Exhibitors, over 40% from 31 countries makes it truly international. The display area reached this year 16 000 m² (160 000 sq ft).
This year Embedded Award paid tribute to especially innovative products in the categories of hardware, software and tools that are unique and future oriented. Prize-winners:
Category software: Coverity (Bolean Satisfiability: Next Generation of Static Analysis)
Category Tools: Express Logic (Eclipse-based IDE for Embedded Development)
Category Hardware: Texas Instruments (Leadership in Ultra-Low-Power Space MSP430F5xx)
Besides that the conference featured 20 Hands-on Classes and 24 Sessions. On the side and in a nice addition an Electronic Displays Conference took place at the same time.
The writer is participating in each years edition from early 90’s and it is easy to say that the show is getting more and more international. It is a top notch High-End knowledge transfer and exchange place.
Sessions were particularly interesting and considering circumstances well attended. They included, Network and Wireless technologies, Multicore Processing and Memory in Embedded Systems. In addition Cryptography and Embedded Security is pulling small crowd. GUI and System-on-Chip are now a staple fair for developers. Large group was addressing Automotive Applications, still, but we all know how the industry is suffering, and their suppliers must account for delayed or for now cancelled projects. Some positive success is Inova Semiconductors, as Robert Kraus (CEO) is mentioning the new project with APIX his company did for BMW 7range. More cars/models will certainly follow soon.
Interesting announcements and papers presented was on cPCI Plus: Intel was talking about Serial Buses and their role for cPCI+. There were several
EW is comparing positively to both CeBIT (20% attendance drop) and to Hannover Messe which is expected to gather as much visitors as in the year 2007 (according to Mr. Pech). It is true that some big companies, especially from US were missing this year. Some have shared both with local distributor, like GE Fanuc. Fortunately start ups and foreign companies filled halls with own wares.
Joe Primeau, Sales Director at Acromag was very pleased with this year’s outcome. “We work with our partners in EMEA for over 20 years. This year we are showing a new PMC based modules with advanced
customizable Virtex-5 FPGA with PowerPC on it. New solution for off-loading the CPU and saving on power consumption and adding on flexibility in resource usage. Conductive cooling extends greatly the range of suitable applications. We have made the show extremely productive for us and for our partners. We have conducted our International Sales Meeting EMEA in the elegant Grand Hotel Le Meridien with all Channels participating. It is The Show-to-be in EMEA, we are definitely going to be back next year”.
Ulrich Gehrmann, (Chairman) was stressing the importance to Kontron, of the Embedded Server business acquired last year from Intel. The deal stresses close relationship to Intel and positions Kontron on the top of a much selected list of companies with access to the CPU technology.
Olga Sinenko, CEO of RTSoft, in frank conversation said: “We have been at Embedded World almost every year, we see changes and we see progress, even now. Our market position is very good, the crisis, it must be acknowledged is hurting some of customers. Over all we have indentified several new markets we are expending into and are moving in right now, we support our loyal markets and we try to be helpful as much as we can. We see a serious growth in those selected segments of our market now.
Mads Poulsen, CEO of RECAB: “we are here because we meet vendors here, competitors, channels and some of our clients as well. It is a great show for this industry”. Sure RECAB has also shows closer to home that are used to meet customers and draft a common road map for future projects very like the shows here.
This idea of Messe as a means of drawing common future between Vendor and End User has its roots perhaps in medieval time markets in Central Europe. Manne Kreuzer of Markt&Technik, a German language Embedded Weekly makes his case and argues the reason why most successful world trade exhibitions are German based. He claims that Messe (German for show or exhibition) is the place where “common future of similar minds” is that reason for success. According to some the difference is that Messe is really a Fair, where one can place and take orders. Having exhibited for over 20 years in EMEA the writer tends to agree that Messe is something more that Fair, this is why meetings here take much longer than the usual 15 min. calls. Why there are back rooms for private chats with well supplied bars, hot sausages, sandwiches, beer or Sect and much more. There are even boat parties on the Rhein (as in Düssledorf Fair) next to a Fair grounds, with bands and paid entertainers. All geared to cater the customer. Messe is where Vendor reassures End User/ OEM that his Road Maps superimpose on OEM’s needs for years to come. And apparently Germans excel in that as success of their Fairs proves. It must be something in that I would agree. Embedded World in Nuremberg is such a fair in its prime regardless of crisis.
True, some vendors have cut on expenses this year, the red Ferrari has disappeared from my friend’s booth, some beer dispensers, pop corn machines also, less freebees available for take home, only one (British) vendor was giving balsa model planes for free. Every one much watch expenses on this hour, media have been less visible. Some large vendors are missing this year, mostly from States, who used to come each year.
Another obvious thing is coming out while meandering between vendor booths: proliferation of standards. It see every vendor tries to create and peddle his “open standard” to others. Some new standards are feeble solution; many lack the required eco-systems and fail to reach a critical mass to launch successful growth.
Stackable USB is a good example, promoted by a strong vendor, who is seeking to propagate the so far a specification instead of a standard. But miniaturization is the daily subject and part of the future of any standard.
One technology still in search of a market is uTCA. Many vendors present at EW argue that NOW they DO have projects and have found suitable Application. But even those biggest ones have admitted privately they repeat the same claim for 4 years running. I could understand the technology is looking for application first couple of years, but 4 years? It is complex, offering much more that we see in specs from the industry, redundancy, high availability and hot swap it is nice, but it is too much for still sufficient technologies that are either cheaper or easier to implement, without all the Management “Over”-Layer.
All in all, I am looking forward to this year of turbulences, fiascos and successes, and to the next year edition of Embedded World in Nuremberg.
Stefan Baginski
March 2009
2009/03/23
EDN has published and interesting article on FPGA, the novelty in it is that in times of economic downturn FPGA technology provides shorter development time, easier updates and fight against product obsolescence. The link is to be fair enclosed: http://www.edn.com/article/CA6643363.html?nid=2431&rid=8663980
For full feature please click on the link.
For us working with Acromag, we knew that FPGA features lend themselves very well to shorter time-to-market and lower cost. However the methodology is varied and requires preparation before attacking new project using FPGA.
For full feature please click on the link.
For us working with Acromag, we knew that FPGA features lend themselves very well to shorter time-to-market and lower cost. However the methodology is varied and requires preparation before attacking new project using FPGA.
2009/03/12
Back to Business Excellence, this time in 2009
The whole financial systems crisis has brought misery to the economy as a whole. The Wall Street crisis has done the biggest crisis to the Main Street since the end of World War II, and that across the world.
The problem started, most would agree, with bursting bubble of real estate in the US. Prices started to drop in most areas making leveraged properties unsustainable. This shook the Fannie Mae and Freddy Mack mortgage guarantors in process that have spread to banking system and especially to investment banking. Banks stopped trading with each other. Short on cash, businesses close left and right shedding people in the same process.
We could spend time in front of media reading, watching and listening to talking heads analysing how it all came about to us. The premise is “we should have known that this is coming” and were supposed to “do something about it”.
Here lies the problem, all the rescuing should be done by politicians, who have no tools to influence the situation much other than cut taxes, throw money at the economy, and new regulations at industry as a whole and at financial sector in particular. Some could still play with state deficit, or exchange rates (if the country is not part of $ or € trade zone).
In the mean time politicians from Mr. Brown to Mr. Obama and many others mix intervention in economy with improving social justice as far as bonuses and pay packages are concerned. One could hardly improve the former not to mention the latter. Action calls for coordinated effort, but protectionism is rife. Size of financial packages ranges from +800 billion US$ in USA to only +20 billion € in Germany (in 2009).
Nevertheless the causes of current situation, the results are devastating, millions of people loose and lost their jobs. Companies are closing or calling Chapter 11 protection law. That affected even such IT flagships like Nortel Telecoms. Another victim is Qimoda. Banks in Germany lost their capital in droves, their shares are worth now:
Deutsche Bank lost 64% of its value
Allianz/Dresdner Bank lost 83%
Commerzbank lost 88% of its value!
What caused the mess was Greed, Arrogance and shear Herd Instinct. Interesting take was mentioned by Bill Clinton, who in Davos, brought up the loose billions of $ that looked for ways of making revenues after the dot.Com Economy busted in 2001. The Federal Reserve set the interest rates so low, that investors fled from savings Banking into better ways of making profit. And especially banks obliged. Subprime rate Mortgages were only the simplest leveraging instruments offered to investors at the time. Instruments became more and more leveraged none knows how much funds are there tied up. To some even pyramid schemes of Madoff kind were legit business models. All seem unreasonable now.
In the Eye of a Storm
As Main Street business sheds personnel, lowers costs, and in panic adopts survival mode things started to look really bad. It supposed to be especially bad for the finance, automotive and semiconductor industries. All of them have formidable lobbies that have connections to politicians, to media and in case of automobile industry, to strong labour unions.
This aspect of unions and politicians together made an explosive mixture of Stimuli to business and at the same time a run with the Social Justice issues, like pay and bonuses to bosses. This is not very good idea to mix them now. Loses started with run on Northern Rock, Lehman Brothers etc. UBS bank has written off some 40 billion of CHF, with losses at Credit Suisse it makes loses of some 10% of Switzerland GDP.
European Union with its strong € should act in coordination uncommon at the times of distress. Historically France was devaluating Franc, increase deficit and went on with business. Germany acting cautiously, would rather wait until US economy picks up lifting German economy on its export trade. This makes Ms. Merkel slow in response for the taste of like Mr. Sarkozy. Who prized quickly Britain for exemplary rescue package, but we know it for a fact now it is not enough. His recent prank was to loan over €6 billion to his auto industry, provided they don’t move out to Czech Republic. Russia, smarting from its default in the ‘90s, passed emergency law preventing run on its banks, and in Davos Mr. Putin has forewarned everyone not to renationalize economies, because there were there before with Gorbachev. Incidentally, the US that has bailed out its banking sector, thus renationalizing banks with taxpayer’s money going in direction Putin was warning not to go. The excuse and at the same time the assurance to US taxpayers was that during the 30’s many houses were repurchased by the state and eventually refloated back to market after economy has picked up again. Hopefully this would happen again.
Throwing good moneys at ailing businesses only prolongs their demise. Only no one has the guts to say that to the banking bosses. The Economist once said that “banking business is a hat trick business” it all depends on CONFIDENCE. And we no longer have that confidence our in banking system.
The Embedded Systems Industry
Certainly, Embedded Industry is suffering recently too, but it seem a secondary effect caused rather by a cash flow problems rather than market collapse. Orders from Automotive Industry have indeed sharply shrunk to a trickle starting in September 2008, but slowly picking up again in January 2009.
The fact to the matter is that Embedded Industry depends more on Ideas than on cash. There are two types of Embedded Enterprises: small to medium size, that success depends on hard work and money from the market reinvested into new and creative products. You could mention here Acromag Incorporated (www.acromag.com). A very successful company with around 70% of its business coming mainly from Aerospace industries or from Governments who are very steady Customers.
The other type is a large vendor of Embedded Products, with markets all over the world, good product range, effective marketing and Channel structure. These companies are flush with funds, and we mean CASH, buying technology from smaller companies.
The nature of Embedded Systems is an essentially based on clever ideas derived by usually by its own R&D departments or as in many smaller enterprises by its Owner, Evangelist, CTO or a leading engineer. Such companies typically grow in organic way, have their costs already tuned up to the business, personnel are being decently compensated but with out undue perks. I bet most of these companies continue to reinvest most of revenues back into business and their cost structure is one of the lowest in business. They usually do not pay dividends, and their access to investment capital is very difficult making them depend on their own ingenuity and they drive technology driven markets. They are small, nimble and innovative. They do not invest in market capture, as they have no such resources or time. They need to sell as much as possible of their new products, before End User turns to large vendors for economies of scale pricing.
Large vendors sit on their cash war chests, gobble smaller, creative and nimble outfits of their promising technologies and grow their market share. Recent 12 months saw disappearance of such known if not famous companies like SBS Computer, VMetro, Thales Computers or VSystems. Even Intel has sold its server business to Kontron.
Researching this article the writer interviewed over 30 executives in Embedded Industry. Most were very cautious and at the same time rather upbeat. Their outlook seemed positive and the only restriction on being openly optimistic was the fact that lots of moneys have disappeared from the economy in general and effect of it must somehow get to each of us individually.
Ulrich Gehrmann, Kontron Chairman was very positive but besides giving a preliminary data from 2008, wanted to turn our attention to a press conference on March 24 to reveal more. He said: Sales in 2008 rose by around 11% year-on-year to approximately EUR 495 million (previous year: EUR 446.5 million). This growth is considerably higher when adjusted for currency effects. In particular, Q4 sales of around EUR 139 million represented a new record level. This corresponds to nominal growth of approximately 13% compared with the same period of the previous year (EUR 123.9 million). The order book as of the year-end also remained at a high level of over EUR 290 million (previous year: EUR 268 million).
Siemens, Germany has also posted a growth in Sales during the 2008, by over 6.6% over the year 2007.
Joseph Primeau, Sales Director at Acromag, a Wixom, Michigan based company, has declined to give total sales figures for neither of 2008 nor 2007. His company, being in private hands refrains to report its figures, but he said: “considering the current financial situation world wide, we are cautiously optimistic and we look forward to a challenging and potentially rewarding year 2009. It is true that some industries suffer economically but we are staying with them along and would continue on their projects as soon as they are ready”.
Back to Normality
After some chatting about business most my executives were easy to admit: we need to have more CONFIDENCE in the economy and we all seem to long for NORMALITY again. Let us get back to what we do best. We develop and propagate most modern technologies in the embedded business, let us talk to our customers. They need our systems in Infrastructure, Utilities, Energy, Transportation, and Communication and in just about any branch of economy where our products are being utilized. Embedded Systems keep our economy running, they do it under the water line, invisibly, quietly and very reliably. We are in every building, every bridge, highway, tunnel, train, bus and so on. We could not move without traffic lights, ventilation and heating based on Embedded Technologies. Such products are needed in huge quantities, and since system requirements keep piling up, every couple of years we must replace and upgrade them anew.
Our industry has no lobby like the banks, aerospace and automobiles. We have no voice in parliaments, have poor access to media. But we employ large number of engineers, programmers, highly qualified personnel with their families, children.
Those who started their businesses after the Third Oil Shock of the 70’s, remember the “In Search of Excellence” book that appeared in the 80’s on the desks of every business manager and gave them a sense of direction to Excel in Customer Satisfaction. That is why each business strives to.
Back to Normality is the word for today. And we need to get back to Excellence like the title of the popular self-improvement book was calling us to aim back at Excellence in what we do. Let us do what we do best: Innovation in Embedded Systems. We won’t be mentioning finances.
S.baginski@bluewin.ch
The problem started, most would agree, with bursting bubble of real estate in the US. Prices started to drop in most areas making leveraged properties unsustainable. This shook the Fannie Mae and Freddy Mack mortgage guarantors in process that have spread to banking system and especially to investment banking. Banks stopped trading with each other. Short on cash, businesses close left and right shedding people in the same process.
We could spend time in front of media reading, watching and listening to talking heads analysing how it all came about to us. The premise is “we should have known that this is coming” and were supposed to “do something about it”.
Here lies the problem, all the rescuing should be done by politicians, who have no tools to influence the situation much other than cut taxes, throw money at the economy, and new regulations at industry as a whole and at financial sector in particular. Some could still play with state deficit, or exchange rates (if the country is not part of $ or € trade zone).
In the mean time politicians from Mr. Brown to Mr. Obama and many others mix intervention in economy with improving social justice as far as bonuses and pay packages are concerned. One could hardly improve the former not to mention the latter. Action calls for coordinated effort, but protectionism is rife. Size of financial packages ranges from +800 billion US$ in USA to only +20 billion € in Germany (in 2009).
Nevertheless the causes of current situation, the results are devastating, millions of people loose and lost their jobs. Companies are closing or calling Chapter 11 protection law. That affected even such IT flagships like Nortel Telecoms. Another victim is Qimoda. Banks in Germany lost their capital in droves, their shares are worth now:
Deutsche Bank lost 64% of its value
Allianz/Dresdner Bank lost 83%
Commerzbank lost 88% of its value!
What caused the mess was Greed, Arrogance and shear Herd Instinct. Interesting take was mentioned by Bill Clinton, who in Davos, brought up the loose billions of $ that looked for ways of making revenues after the dot.Com Economy busted in 2001. The Federal Reserve set the interest rates so low, that investors fled from savings Banking into better ways of making profit. And especially banks obliged. Subprime rate Mortgages were only the simplest leveraging instruments offered to investors at the time. Instruments became more and more leveraged none knows how much funds are there tied up. To some even pyramid schemes of Madoff kind were legit business models. All seem unreasonable now.
In the Eye of a Storm
As Main Street business sheds personnel, lowers costs, and in panic adopts survival mode things started to look really bad. It supposed to be especially bad for the finance, automotive and semiconductor industries. All of them have formidable lobbies that have connections to politicians, to media and in case of automobile industry, to strong labour unions.
This aspect of unions and politicians together made an explosive mixture of Stimuli to business and at the same time a run with the Social Justice issues, like pay and bonuses to bosses. This is not very good idea to mix them now. Loses started with run on Northern Rock, Lehman Brothers etc. UBS bank has written off some 40 billion of CHF, with losses at Credit Suisse it makes loses of some 10% of Switzerland GDP.
European Union with its strong € should act in coordination uncommon at the times of distress. Historically France was devaluating Franc, increase deficit and went on with business. Germany acting cautiously, would rather wait until US economy picks up lifting German economy on its export trade. This makes Ms. Merkel slow in response for the taste of like Mr. Sarkozy. Who prized quickly Britain for exemplary rescue package, but we know it for a fact now it is not enough. His recent prank was to loan over €6 billion to his auto industry, provided they don’t move out to Czech Republic. Russia, smarting from its default in the ‘90s, passed emergency law preventing run on its banks, and in Davos Mr. Putin has forewarned everyone not to renationalize economies, because there were there before with Gorbachev. Incidentally, the US that has bailed out its banking sector, thus renationalizing banks with taxpayer’s money going in direction Putin was warning not to go. The excuse and at the same time the assurance to US taxpayers was that during the 30’s many houses were repurchased by the state and eventually refloated back to market after economy has picked up again. Hopefully this would happen again.
Throwing good moneys at ailing businesses only prolongs their demise. Only no one has the guts to say that to the banking bosses. The Economist once said that “banking business is a hat trick business” it all depends on CONFIDENCE. And we no longer have that confidence our in banking system.
The Embedded Systems Industry
Certainly, Embedded Industry is suffering recently too, but it seem a secondary effect caused rather by a cash flow problems rather than market collapse. Orders from Automotive Industry have indeed sharply shrunk to a trickle starting in September 2008, but slowly picking up again in January 2009.
The fact to the matter is that Embedded Industry depends more on Ideas than on cash. There are two types of Embedded Enterprises: small to medium size, that success depends on hard work and money from the market reinvested into new and creative products. You could mention here Acromag Incorporated (www.acromag.com). A very successful company with around 70% of its business coming mainly from Aerospace industries or from Governments who are very steady Customers.
The other type is a large vendor of Embedded Products, with markets all over the world, good product range, effective marketing and Channel structure. These companies are flush with funds, and we mean CASH, buying technology from smaller companies.
The nature of Embedded Systems is an essentially based on clever ideas derived by usually by its own R&D departments or as in many smaller enterprises by its Owner, Evangelist, CTO or a leading engineer. Such companies typically grow in organic way, have their costs already tuned up to the business, personnel are being decently compensated but with out undue perks. I bet most of these companies continue to reinvest most of revenues back into business and their cost structure is one of the lowest in business. They usually do not pay dividends, and their access to investment capital is very difficult making them depend on their own ingenuity and they drive technology driven markets. They are small, nimble and innovative. They do not invest in market capture, as they have no such resources or time. They need to sell as much as possible of their new products, before End User turns to large vendors for economies of scale pricing.
Large vendors sit on their cash war chests, gobble smaller, creative and nimble outfits of their promising technologies and grow their market share. Recent 12 months saw disappearance of such known if not famous companies like SBS Computer, VMetro, Thales Computers or VSystems. Even Intel has sold its server business to Kontron.
Researching this article the writer interviewed over 30 executives in Embedded Industry. Most were very cautious and at the same time rather upbeat. Their outlook seemed positive and the only restriction on being openly optimistic was the fact that lots of moneys have disappeared from the economy in general and effect of it must somehow get to each of us individually.
Ulrich Gehrmann, Kontron Chairman was very positive but besides giving a preliminary data from 2008, wanted to turn our attention to a press conference on March 24 to reveal more. He said: Sales in 2008 rose by around 11% year-on-year to approximately EUR 495 million (previous year: EUR 446.5 million). This growth is considerably higher when adjusted for currency effects. In particular, Q4 sales of around EUR 139 million represented a new record level. This corresponds to nominal growth of approximately 13% compared with the same period of the previous year (EUR 123.9 million). The order book as of the year-end also remained at a high level of over EUR 290 million (previous year: EUR 268 million).
Siemens, Germany has also posted a growth in Sales during the 2008, by over 6.6% over the year 2007.
Joseph Primeau, Sales Director at Acromag, a Wixom, Michigan based company, has declined to give total sales figures for neither of 2008 nor 2007. His company, being in private hands refrains to report its figures, but he said: “considering the current financial situation world wide, we are cautiously optimistic and we look forward to a challenging and potentially rewarding year 2009. It is true that some industries suffer economically but we are staying with them along and would continue on their projects as soon as they are ready”.
Back to Normality
After some chatting about business most my executives were easy to admit: we need to have more CONFIDENCE in the economy and we all seem to long for NORMALITY again. Let us get back to what we do best. We develop and propagate most modern technologies in the embedded business, let us talk to our customers. They need our systems in Infrastructure, Utilities, Energy, Transportation, and Communication and in just about any branch of economy where our products are being utilized. Embedded Systems keep our economy running, they do it under the water line, invisibly, quietly and very reliably. We are in every building, every bridge, highway, tunnel, train, bus and so on. We could not move without traffic lights, ventilation and heating based on Embedded Technologies. Such products are needed in huge quantities, and since system requirements keep piling up, every couple of years we must replace and upgrade them anew.
Our industry has no lobby like the banks, aerospace and automobiles. We have no voice in parliaments, have poor access to media. But we employ large number of engineers, programmers, highly qualified personnel with their families, children.
Those who started their businesses after the Third Oil Shock of the 70’s, remember the “In Search of Excellence” book that appeared in the 80’s on the desks of every business manager and gave them a sense of direction to Excel in Customer Satisfaction. That is why each business strives to.
Back to Normality is the word for today. And we need to get back to Excellence like the title of the popular self-improvement book was calling us to aim back at Excellence in what we do. Let us do what we do best: Innovation in Embedded Systems. We won’t be mentioning finances.
S.baginski@bluewin.ch
2009/02/18
New PMC modules feature Virtex-5 FPGA
NEWS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 12, 2009
Contacts: Sales - Inside Sales Department (e-mail: solutions@acromag.com)
Editorial -
EMEA-Stefan Baginski, Managing Director Europe (sbaginski@acromag.com)
New PMC modules feature a Virtex-5 FPGA with an embedded PowerPC core for high-performance I/O signal processing.
Acromag’s new PMC I/O modules provide a Virtex-5 FPGA with hard core PowerPC for fast execution of the most complex and memory-intensive computing applications.
The PMC base card provides 64 I/O channels or 32 LVDS lines accessible via P4 rear connectors. Inserting optional front-connecting AXM I/O extension modules augments I/O processing capabilities with an efficient interface for 16-bit 105MHz A/D conversion , CMOS digital I/O, RS-485 differential signals, or extra LVDS I/O lines. Typical uses include processing of video, 3D data, radar/sonar, software-defined radio, electronic warfare, floating-point math and fuzzy logic algorithms.
Powerful and versatile, this PMC module employs Xilinx’s VFX70T Virtex-5 FPGA with 71,680 logic cells and an embedded PowerPC 440 processor 32-bit RISC core. With the configurable FPGA’s hard core PowerPC, developers can customize off-the-shelf PMC modules and use high-performance parallel and serial processing to solve the most challenging computing applications. The PowerPC core also enables system-on-chip functionality with real-time processing capabilities.
- more -
Application programs are downloaded directly into the FPGA or to the 32MB flash memory from the PCI bus. Acromag’s Engineering Design Kit provides utilities to help users develop their programs, load VHDL into the FPGA, and to establish DMA transfers between the FPGA and the CPU. The kit includes a compiled FPGA file and example VHDL code provided as selectable blocks with examples for the local bus interface, read/writes, and change-of-state interrupts to the PCI bus. A JTAG interface allows users to perform on-board VHDL simulation. Further analysis is supported with a ChipScope™ Pro interface.
Acromag supports the Virtex-5 FPGA with plenty of memory and a high-speed interface for efficient data handling. Two banks of 64Mb x 16-bit DDR2 SDRAM are ready to receive data from the I/O ports for FPGA processing. Processed data moves to two banks of 256Kb x 32-bit dual-ported SRAM for high-speed DMA transfer to the PCI bus. A high-bandwidth PCI-X interface delivers rapid data throughput. The PCI-X interface supports 100MHz and 66MHz PCI bus modes.
For easy integration of the boards with embedded Windows® applications, Acromag developed a DLL driver software package for compatibility with Microsoft® Visual C++™, and Visual Basic. Sample files with “C” source demonstration programs provide easy-to-use tools to test operation of the module.
For connectivity with real time application programs, Acromag offers C libraries for VxWorks®, QNX®, and other operating systems. The libraries provide generic routines (source code included) to handle reads, writes, interrupts, and other functions. Demonstration programs enable the developer to quickly exercise the I/O modules before attaching the routines to the application program. This diagnostic tool can save hours of troubleshooting and debugging. Free Linux example programs are also available.
Acromag has designed and manufactured measurement and control products for more than 50 years. They are an international corporation with a world headquarters near
For more information about Acromag products, call Inside Sales or Marketing Communications at (248) 295-0310, (877) 295-7092, FAX (248) 624-9234, or write Acromag, Inc. at
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Photo and CD-ROM with high-resolution digital image enclosed
Shown: PMC-VFX FPGA I/O module
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