Microsoft will likely maintain its dominance in embedded technology for consumer electronics as more of the devices come onto the market, several local companies said yesterday.
"I think a large number of manufacturers are applying, or plan to adopt, Microsoft's embedded technologies due to the high capacity, which enables their products to be compatible with Windows-platform appliances," Zebra Chen (陳仁邦), general manager of Techware Information Technology Inc (鈦克科技), said at a press conference organized by Microsoft.
Techware, a consulting firm that provides embedded software solutions, joined with Tatung Co (大同公司), Advantech Co (研華), Wistron Corp (緯創), Synnex Technology International (聯強) and four other companies yesterday to demonstrate their support for Microsoft's embedded device technology.
Embedded devices are chips with software already integrated that are applied to a wide range of electronic products including personal digital assistants (PDAs), digital cameras and smartphones.
These devices are mostly powered by Microsoft software such as Windows CE .NET, Windows XP Embedded and Visual Studio .NET.
Nearly 90 percent of such appliances are used in conjunction with Windows operating systems on personal computers.
Although the open-source Linux is considered more flexible and cheaper, companies using Linux also need to invest more in developing their own products, Chen said.
Furthermore, Linux's incompatibility with the Windows operating system, which is used in the majority of PCs around the world, makes it less favored in consumers electronics, he said.
According to a study last year conducted by the US research firm Embedded Market Forecasters, embedded system manufacturers on average took 76 percent longer and spent more than 300 percent more to develop and bring to market embedded systems using Linux compared to Windows.
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For example, many consumers like to transmit data or files stored in their PDAs to their personal computers, or send audio files downloaded from PCs to their mp3 players, Pan said.
However, Chen said the result of Microsoft's dominance in embedded technology would create dependence on the company.
"In this way, we all need to count on Microsoft to constantly improve its embedded devices to drive the progress of various products," Chen said.
"And the industry will generally lose its creativity," he said.
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