Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Now Available: Embedded Systems Market Statistics

Embedded Software 2008 Market Intelligence Service
Track 3: Embedded Systems Market Statistics

VDC Research Group is pleased to announce the release of seven reports on embedded systems market statistics, as part its 2008 Embedded Software Market Intelligence Service. The statistics are based on detailed Web survey responses from hundreds of embedded developers and VDC’s proprietary embedded systems market statistics model. This model is a tool for estimating and forecasting the global population of embedded engineers, the global number of project starts, and the Total Market for Embedded Software Engineering (TMESE). Each volume focuses on one of the following key vertical markets:

Volume 1: Automotive/Transportation
Volume 2: Consumer Electronics
Volume 3: Industrial Automation
Volume 4: Medical Devices
Volume 5: Military/Aerospace
Volume 6: Mobile Phones
Volume 7: Telecom/Datacom

Research Highlights

Through a combination of modeled estimates and end-user data analysis, each Embedded Systems Market Statistics volume includes but is not limited to the following information:

  • Demographics (Geographic region, primary role, type of product developed, and application type)
  • Key Industry Trends (General market and system engineering trends)
  • Project Statistics (Number of project starts worldwide, average per company, project length, time-to-market, cost of development, percent of cost attributed to software development)
  • Labor Statistics (Number of embedded systems engineers working for embedded systems manufacturers, distribution by engineer type, average number of engineers working on current development projects, average age and years developing embedded systems, annual salary)
  • Solution Statistics (Total spend on commercial embedded software solutions and percentage by product type, average umber of units shipped by company for 2007 and distribution by operating system type, average number of lines of code developed in-house, number of commercial/third-party lines of code, type of operating system used in current project, type of processor used in current design, use of key programming languages, as well as annual tools budget for software/system engineers)
  • Total Market for Embedded Software Engineering (Total spend on commercial products and embedded systems manufacturers labor)

Report Scope

These reports provide key embedded system engineering statistics for seven key vertical markets. These reports rely on information from VDC’s proprietary embedded systems market statistics model. This model is based on information gathered through VDC’s primary and secondary research and includes detailed analysis of our 2008 Embedded Systems Engineering survey.

To access the full PDF version of this brochure as well as other information on these reports, click here

Monday, December 29, 2008

Code Base Growth, Safety-Critical Requirements Driving Static Analysis Market

Recently published research by VDC Research indicates that embedded software engineers using a static analysis tool are working on projects with significantly larger average numbers of in-house developed lines of software code than developers not using a static analysis tool. VDC considers static code analysis tools to include solutions ranging from Lint-based syntax parsers to standards’ compliance checkers to tools using more formal methods for verification.


With the overall embedded code base growing a rate near 10%, VDC expects that an increasing number of development teams may look toward static analysis tools as a means to ensure code quality and functionality.

“With this continued growth in code bases, the potential number of executable paths within the code is also increasing dramatically, often limiting the traditional dynamic testing tools’ ability to achieve acceptable code coverage, both with regards to the sheer number of tests needed to be executed as well as the amount of time needed to run them,” says Chris Rommel, Analyst with VDC’s Embedded Software Practice. "The ability of static analysis tools to allow individual engineers to test code without executing it, earlier in the development cycle, should present vendors with additional opportunities for growth, especially in economic times when excessive backend QA effort can easily eliminate any remaining,potential profit margins."

The difference between the average code bases of these user groups can also serve to benchmark the typical code base sizes needed for a project team/company to be considered a legitimate candidate for a commercial static analysis tool. However, application classes tending to have requirements that are more safety- or security-critical in nature embrace static analysis tools at higher rate, before code base size and complexity alone would normally drive development teams to consider additional testing methodologies.

For example, surveyed static analysis tool users currently working on a project for the military/aerospace industry (which also accounted for the highest percentage of the total embedded software static analysis tools spend in 2007) reported a median of 22,500 lines of in-house developed code as compared to 45,000 by the overall static analysis tool user population.

Although VDC believes that an increasing number of development teams will look toward static analysis tools as a software development best practice, the escalating importance of software quality will generate a growing demand for comprehensive testing solutions that can also provide tight integration with dynamic testing tools as well as with other complementary application lifecycle management tools.

VDC explores these and other critical issues within this market in the recently released report, Static Analysis Tools, Volume 4 from Track 2 of VDC’s 2008 Embedded Software Market Intelligence Service.

To Access the PDF version of this press release, click here