Cross-Development Platform in C-Empowering the Embedded world
The technological advancement has seen an increase in the number of electronic products. These new age gadgets that are used across various consumer, industrial, manufacturing, commercial and defense applications are embedded systems that are dependent on operating systems and software applications for their functioning. Though embedded devices are primarily designed to perform dedicated function, the growth in technology, showcases the market place brimming with Smartphones, tablets, laptops and other mobile devices which have embedded systems designed to perform a variety of functions. An embedded device functions through an operating system that increases the efficiency and flexibility of the product. Wikipedia defines Operating System (OS) as “a collection of software that manages computer hardware resources and provides common services for computer programs”. Being the basis on which all application programs function, the operating systems of the new age devices enable users to run a number of real-time applications. To accommodate highly specific customer needs in a rapidly changing embedded world,enterprises either go in for new OS development as per the application requirements or upgrade OS so that the existing applications can function efficiently or use cross-platform development solutions. The consumer electronic industry faces issues such as short product life-cycles, price and performance pressures and short time-to-market. The IT industry is continuously working with newer applications to overcome these issues. However, the need to change OS arises when the existing operating system becomes obsolete or cannot support the new applications, or there are demands from customers for a different OS or there is a change in the user's technical requirements. Further, to combat the issues of application and OS compatibility in the consumer electronic industry leading service providers of embedded software re-usability solutions have provided a robust cross-OS development platform and OS simulators. Cross-OS Development Platform which is a C/C++ source-level virtualization technology provides a robust and industry standard OS interface architecture for flexible real-time application development. Solutions such as cross platform development in C, facilitate enterprises to use a standard interface to develop portable applications. By leveraging upon the common components across platform, the enterprise can gain a faster reach to the market. Since development of software is controlled by its lifecycle components, the cross platform development also facilitates IT professionals to develop once and deploy on multiple platforms. By supporting multiple OS and its versions, the cross-platform development in C helps to nullify the porting issues faced by the new age products as a result of frequent introduction to new hardware or software. This also eliminates the need for manual updates in the event of upgrading OS. For the customers such flexibility to change OS facilitates a cost-effective development and for the enterprises an opportunity to expand the market share. Related Links: ada to c, hypervisor