Analyst Loring Wirbel covers programmable logic from an application perspective, providing a sneak peek at the vertical applications that help drive FPGA complexity, performance, and density. The blog will feature videos allowing engineers to spotlight their latest designs, along with news of products and corporate trends at FPGA vendors and the developers of third-party tools for programmable logic.
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Blog
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
The hazards of a software grab
Nov 11 2009 9:24AM | Permalink |Comments (7) |
Why should a swallowing of MontaVista Software by Cavium bother anyone in the FPGA community? Well, does the end result of Intel-Wind River strike fear in your heart? Does anyone remember LVL7 before they went inside Broadcom? How about poor NetPlane Systems, being bounced between Conexant and Motorola Computer Group?
Cavium is a cool company, and I’m sure they’ll put MontaVista’s software to good use in their communication processors. But that is at once the advantage and the problem. Open-source software, middleware, RTOSes, and communication protocols, must by nature be independent. When a large software company buys a vertical specialist, it results in diversification. When a semiconductor company or hardware OEM acquires a software company, applications shrink to one instantiation, despite the protestations of the acquiring company.
I would never suggest to FPGA developers that they avoid snapping up a small EDA specialist that is more or less unique to one architecture. But let’s beg and browbeat Xilinx, Altera, Actel, and Lattice today, to avoid snapping up the likes of a Red Hat. There might be a business case where it could make sense, but it would be wrong. Just ask the customers of Wind River.
Related entries in: FPGA Gurus | Programmable Logic | Software |
Reader Comments
at 11/12/2009 8:37:28 AM, Embedded guy said:
Cavium says that MV's revenue is large enough (15%ish) that it matters (WR is a fraction of Intel's revenue). Cavium says MV will operate as a separate company with its own brand, sales force and support other architectures. Lets see if Cavium can keep MV "open"
at 11/13/2009 9:05:08 AM, Loring said:
It's like the integrity of the Wind River brand - Cavium, like Intel, is on notice!
at 11/13/2009 9:39:39 AM, embedded PM said:
It's the new reality. Silicon vendors are buying up the software companies because they realize doing it themselves has become difficult so they buy the expertise rather then build it. We should accept Wind River's assertion that it's business as usual if we accept MontaVista's. Remember QNX is part of Harman International and have carried on in a fairly independent manner. The nature of the OS business in embedded is that you have to support multiple chipsets, it's where the money is.
at 11/13/2009 3:39:29 PM, multicore coder said:
mvl was into almost all Tier1 accounts that Cavium sells to or would want to sell to. This along with carrier grade linux story. Windriver acquisition is resulting in clear impact of SW support and future SW roadmaps for octeon (CPU from Cavium).
I would watch other SW companies which r providing OS and tools and listed in Cavium's eco-system partner list. RMI or other CPU vendors may start picking those up to kill the SW ecosystem of competitors.
at 11/13/2009 4:32:51 PM, valley eyes said:
watch other SW? these are doing mips and ARM
embedded alley: acquired by Mentor.
paxym: aligning with local ARM vendor.
windriver: acquired by intel.
green hills:
virtutech:
at 11/16/2009 12:05:45 PM, Loring said:
@ valley eyes - interesting list...Seems like Green Hills may be diversified and large enough at this point to stay independent, though the world is full of surprises.
at 11/16/2009 1:07:57 PM, Janet said:
QNX is independent because Harman International doesn't really compete with the silicon valley industry. The only industry that has some competition concern is telematics --- but the auto industry is fairly dead at the moment.
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