State of the Embedded Market

The embedded market has always played an important role in the decision making process of industrial firms and that importance is growing every year.

Many companies use real-time systems, require electronic design or develop custom firmware; the choice of tools and software is driven by experience, background and different mindset.

There are 4 fundamental aspects that influence those choices:

• Open source: often neglected for fear or uncertainty about the licenses, it’s a great resource of software and libraries

• Hardware: which are the most popular microcontrollers, what are the parameters relevant to hardware’s choice and which are the most important information sources.

• Software Development: what OS / IDE / Tools are common, why are they chosen, what are the most important features, which libraries are popular and what is their life cycle inside the project.

• Real-Time OS: which is the most popular? Do they bring real benefits or are they too complex? What is the best choice between a commercial or open source RTOS solution? What are the expectations on an RTOS?

Currently, the embedded industry is lacking a well defined identity. Embedded development is usually split in two competing camps, the pure hardware field and the software field. On the contrary, typical problems can be optimally solved only with a synergy of skills and technologies from both camps.

That is still not clear, at least in the Italian market, where the approach is often simplistic or, worse still, focused only on one of the two components.

This is the premise that pushed us to create Better Embedded, the first Italian conference dedicated to embedded development. The conference was born from a very simple need: to broaden the training in embedded in Italian territory and thereby increase the quality of the products.

The event will cover advanced topics, introducing and explaining in collaboration with national experts and excellent companies, the latest news and best practices for developers and designers, what’s on offer, what are the dynamics of the product, which are technologies with which you can develop and improve your idea and your project.

Particular attention is given to open source solutions, an important opportunity for the embedded industry, yet little appreciated in our country, to the exclusion of excellent projects like Arduino.

The conference is a great opportunity for professional training and to build new relationships with customers and partners in the market.

In its very first year, the event is organized by Develer Srl, a company engaged in the design and development of high quality software and hardware, also known for its experience in organizing training events of great thickness like:

•  Italian QtDay (with Nokia)

•  Better Software (of which this is a spinoff dedicated to embedded)

•  Europython, the European Conference on Python (to be held this July again in Florence)

If you like the sound of this, then sign up for one or both days, and I look forward to see you in Florence!

Since 2009 Francesco Pallanti is the man behind all the conferences organised by Develer;  he does not shave too often, plays guitar in a rock band and drives a Speed Triple around the Tuscany montain pass.