FREE SOFTWARE
As he stands in front of a whiteboard littered with Xs and Os, it isn't hard to picture Alex Daly 16 years younger as a footballer at the University of Miami. Except, instead of a jersey, he's wearing a poplin dress shirt. And in lieu of game plays, he's spewing jargon worthy of an august hacker.
"We want to be the Linux of embedded systems," says the Cygnus Solutions president and CEO.
Cygnus, a $20 million software-development tools firm based in Sunnyvale, California, is making an offer manufacturers are finding tough to resist. That proposal is eCos. And the source code for this embedded OS can be downloaded at www.sourceware.cygnus.com. Compared to the desktop OS market, where Windows reigns, embedded systems are a mishmash of standards. Wind River and ISI lead the market with about 8 percent share each. Microsoft is close behind. But roughly half of all device makers - not wanting to pay royalties or unhappy with off-the-shelf systems - build their own OSes.
It's these companies that Cygnus is targeting. So far, the eCos source code has been downloaded more than 10,000 times, and 14 major firms, including Motorola, Toshiba, NEC, Panasonic, and Toyota, plan to use it in products ranging from cell phones and cars to Internet routers.
Of course, Cygnus plans to make money by selling support and pro tools. After all, says marketing VP Scott Petry, the open-source business model comes down to support: "Toyota is not going to stake its next-generation car on something it downloaded from the Net."
Despite the appeal of open source - programmers and manufacturers flock to its unfettered access to code and the ability to fine-tune features - eCos is the new kid on the block. "If you're using Wind River, you won't jump to eCos right away," says Forrester Research's Carl Howe.
But Daly believes the proprietary model is breaking down. "Open source is a new world order," he says. "In five to ten years, people will say, 'I can't believe they used to do software any other way.'"
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