Microsoft Throws Down Embedded XP Gauntlet

An Anonymous Coward writes: "Microsoft has published an online document entitled 'Why Microsoft Windows XP Embedded and Not Embedded Linux?', in which embedded XP is compared to Embedded Linux in eight ways. Given that fact that 'Embedded Linux' is not the product of a single dominant vendor, but rather is the result of the collaborative (and competitive) efforts of an entire market consisting of dozens of large and small companies plus thousands of individual developers, LinuxDevices.com is inviting the Embedded Linux Community to respond to 'Why Microsoft Windows XP Embedded and Not Embedded Linux?' through guest editorials and talkbacks."

Comments

Why? Why Not?

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

'Why Microsoft Windows XP Embedded and Not Embedded Linux?'

Gosh, maybe "not being held hostage by the business requirements of your single vendor" qualifies as a valid response...

Huh?!

[Ivan Raikov]

Okay, I haven't finished reading the Microsoft document yet, but these people have been hitting the crack pipe WAY too much!

Consider, for example, this paragraph:

Embedded Linux offers a standard kernel but no standard device level application programming interface (API). There are multiple implementations of other major OS components so developers end up working with different programming environments and tools for each device, decreasing efficiency, limiting code re-use and increasing application development time.

So the claim here is that (1) there is no standard device API and (2) there are no standard development tools in Linux. Note that I'm not even considering the obvious contradiction about having a standard kernel, but no standard device interface (??!!).

Now, I disagree with both statements, because the ioctl interface has been around for about 25 years, and we have things like the /proc filesystem to complement it; also, the GNU development toolchain is quite standard, and I've seen many compilers and cross-compilers for 8-bit systems that are based off of GCC.

But the crack-smoking part comes here:
* For example, there are at least five different window managers and at least four competing browsers, increasing programming complexity and reducing the pool of available developers.

Huh? Huh?! Didn't they just talk about development tools and device API? What the hell is wrong with these people?

Marketroid speak is scary.

[Darby]

I would expect CEO's of tech companies to be less susceptiple to this sort of tactic than those of a company whose tech budget is all under the 'expense' column.

A quick glance through the page set off my bullshit detector big time.

I mean some of these are gems:

Comprehensive:
Windows XP Embedded is the most reliable version of Windows ever. Comprehensive OS foundation with proven performance and reliability
On a brand new system. Where was this proven, in the imagination of MS marketing?

Windows XP delivers equivalent or better uptime than Windows 2000 Professional and three times the uptime performance of Windows NT® 4.0.
Compared to the crap we got you to buy before this thing rocks!

Across an average of industry-standard benchmarks (Winstone and Webmark), Windows XP system performance is 54% faster than Windows® Me® and equivalent to Windows 2000 Professional.
Windows XP is 34% faster on system startup and 21% faster on resume from standby than Windows 2000 Professional (700 MHz CPUs and above).
Application startup is 21% faster in Windows XP than in Windows Me and equivalent to Windows 2000 Professional (after first use).

Comparing this to our other products, rather than to the competition which we're trying to mislead you to believe we're doing in this document, this is faster, contrary to third party benchmarks.

Note: Windows XP Embedded was not tested directly. Internal Microsoft testing indicates that Windows XP Embedded exhibited similar or better reliability and performance characteristics than Windows XP Professional.

In fact we're not even really talking about what we say we are.

On the Linux side we have a big N/A. Meaning we don't want to compare to them in this category.

Windows XP Embedded supports a minimal bootable image of 4.8 MB.

I'm not an embedded developer, so I can't say how good this is.

Lineo sites a minimum footprint size of 2MB ROM / 4 MB RAM for Real Time Linux with an embedded Linux kernel (both are required). Red Hat, for its new version of embedded Linux, recommends 8MB RAM and 4MB Flash as minimum system requirements. The Red Hat Linux kernel alone uses approximately 1.5-2MB in ROM depending on configuration.

But I can say that comparing the minimum needed to boot versus the recommended usable system size isn't apples to apples. To actually have anything besides the OS it seems like Linux will take far fewer resources in any configuration.

Unmatched
Windows XP Embedded
An unmatched technology portfolio for building the next generation of devices

Buzzwords, zero content.

Windows XP Embedded delivers a feature-rich multimedia experience. Full support for DirectX® 8 provides superior graphics rendering and performance.Direct3D®-advanced support for interactive 3-D graphics applications.Windows Media 8 for industry-leading codecs and Digital Rights Management (DRM).Support for advanced graphical functionality including ClearType® fonts and multiscreen.DVD video support.

We will completely tie you in to MS proprietary interfaces making it call for a complete rewrite of everything you've done if you want to move to any other platform.

Embedded Linux
Linux is a follower, not an innovator

Arguable, but so is MS, but we won't mention that here.

To get the functionality, quality, performance, codec support and DRM delivered in Windows XP Embedded, OEMs will need to license an array of third party components including codecs, DRM and renderers (players) that generally come with incremental licensing fees. The MP3 basic decoder costs about $0.50 per-unit. If an OEM wants the enhanced functionality of MP3 Pro, it will pay an additional $2.50 per-unit royalty. For MP3 Pro encode and decode, costs can run an incremental $7.50 per-unit.

Embedded development

[Anonymous Coward]

Check out the progress of WinCE. After millions of dollars of marketing, embedded developers in general don't use it. Apart from a few scaled-down hand-held PCs, WinCE has no market penetration. Microsoft will keep trying, however, until either it runs out of money or succeeds. Intel as well has attempted to buy its way into the embedded space

As an embedded developer, I have never found Microsoft's licensing fees or preconfigured notions of what the embedded software should do to be helpful in designing my applications. An Intel x86 processor, despite Intel's arguments to the contrary, is not always the best solution.

Even if Microsoft takes over every x86 embedded application, there will still be millions of ARM, PPC, and STAMP applications for which Microsoft is irrelevant.