As you consider which is the best operating system for your device and applications, you may think that the absence of license royalties on the Linux kernel means you will save money by going with Embedded Linux. But the cost savings are not a given. Depending on your device requirements, choosing Linux could result in significantly more development work, resulting in a device that costs much more to develop and support than one based on Windows Embedded.

Compared to embedded Linux, the Windows Embedded platform provides the most consistent, professionally tested support for a broad set of popular hardware platforms.

OEMs choosing Windows Embedded can meet changing customer requirements more rapidly and flexibly with a mature embedded development platform and the latest innovative technologies. The following chart provides a concise and effective comparison that clearly illustrates the productivity strengths of the Windows Embedded solution.

Familiar, Powerful and Consistent Development Tools

Windows Embedded provides "Structured Flexibility" for rapid and customized platform and application development combining the most integrated development environment with rich native and managed code application development tools familiar to over six million developers.

There is no single embedded development environment for Linux. Linux developers find that they must self-assemble a working embedded development "tool chain" from among the various tools available on the Web, largely GNU or GCC based - few of which were developed with the needs of embedded developers in mind or from specific embedded Linux tool chain distributors.

According to open source organizations like CELF and the former ELC, anywhere from 10-40 different sub tools must be manually assembled, tested, and integrated for each embedded development project. Moreover, the development tools are almost entirely command-line based which may be sufficient for experienced developers but much more challenging for newer developers.

Lower Total Cost of Development and Fast Time to Market

Windows Embedded software engineering teams tend to be smaller (8 people) and more productive. According to an independent study sponsored by the Embedded Linux Consortium and done by Venture Development Corporation (VDC) Windows Embedded has 2-3 times lower total cost of development than the various embedded Linux operating systems.

• Total Development Costs: Fixed costs associated with developing a product from design start to product shipment as a function of time-to-market, software engineering team (development, testing, QA and program management) and software engineering team cost.
• Associated Costs: Variable fixed costs associated with the tool chain, support and maintenance costs for a design whether during development or after product shipment and vary depending on development team size or vendor terms.
• Runtime Costs: True variable costs directly associated with the shipment of every device for both the operating system and other software components if licensed separately.

The Windows Embedded solution provides better and more mature tools combined with a rich and componentized operating system enable OEMs to get to market on average in 8 months.

Of course, the Windows Embedded solution is considerably more competitive than other solutions for three additional reasons:

• The Availability of many third-party components
• Access to Source Code
• Robust Device Design Templates

Both Windows CE and XP Embedded ship with dozens of higher level software features and applications which add value to the core operating system and networking stacks. Microsoft has been offering Windows CE source code since 2001. Windows CE offers a variety of design templates that implement a wide selection of Catalog items. Using a design template to create an OS design allows OEMs to quickly create an OS design that they can customize to meet the needs of the target device.

Better Support and Maintenance

Better support and maintenance facilitates the probability of a device's quality and ultimately a device design's success. Sales Blacks Belts can assure OEMs that choose Windows Embedded that they will be able to cost effectively manage device life cycle development, and support and maintenance costs. The following chart clearly illustrates the competitive differences between the Windows Embedded platform and the other embedded platforms.

There are four primary competitive selling points that clearly illustrate the Windows Embedded support and maintenance advantages:

• Managed Community Collaboration
• Extensive Partner Base
• Low Maintenance and Support Costs
• Strong Developer Community
  

Managed Community

The Windows Embedded Ecosystem is a "Managed" one, whereas, the embedded Linux community ecosystem is an "Unmanaged" one. What this really means is that OEMs and ODMs can rely on a single contact for all of their support and maintenance needs know that it is licensed and commercial quality.

When using embedded Linux community resources, not only are they fragmented, not well known and documented, but more often, than not, they are not production quality their support and maintenance components. This means the OEM and ODMs must do the integration work.

Extensive Partner Base

Microsoft is deeply engaged with a broad set of over 2,500 partners in 65 countries worldwide, who collectively bring to market over 800 value-added solutions built on Windows Embedded operating systems.

In contrast, embedded Linux is becoming increasingly fragmented, with competing Linux distributions, tool chains, and APIs that show no clear signs of moving toward a commonly adopted and therefore viable standard. Embedded Linux's partner base is judged upon whether a commercial or public vendor is considered. Commercial Linux vendors do not match the level of support that they offer to OEMs/ODMs via partners simply due to the fact that they are not as mature a company as Microsoft and lack of pure partner numbers.

Low Maintenance and Support Costs

The Windows Embedded business model is such that we reduce OEM and ODM up-front costs by providing a royalty based business model. There is nothing equivalent with any embedded Linux platform.

Windows Embedded has low-cost per-developer-seat tools (estimated retail price for each toolkit is $995.) Windows Embedded also comes with free maintenance for up to at least 5 years and low cost per incident support costs all resulting in a much lower and "pay as you go" cost profile over the life of the project.

Many embedded Linux vendors have changed their tool sets many times over the last few years and are now adopting the Eclipse framework. The support and understanding of this new tool set is still very immature in the market.

Strong Developer Community

The Microsoft Windows ecosystem is the most expansive compared to other embedded OSs ecosystem. There are over six million developers world-wide alone that are familiar with the .NET framework alone!

Although, Linux has a developer community, embedded Linux designs are not standardized and they are specific implementations which typically do not translate one developer's capabilities to all embedded Linux device designs.

Microsoft only gets paid when OEMs get paid for shipping successful devices to market. This provides long-term financial incentives for Microsoft to build an embedded platform that continually enables OEMs to more rapidly and productively develop products. This, bay far is the best business model in the embedded device market.

OEMs choosing Windows Embedded are partners with Microsoft to enable long-term and "shared success" based on aligned incentives and proven flexible business models that protect OEM Intellectual Property. The following chart clearly shows why Windows Embedded offers the best business model for device manufacturers.

There are five primary competitive selling points that make Windows Embedded the best business alignment model:

• Shared Success Business Model
• High IP Protection
• IP Competitive Advantage
• Substantial Investment
  
• Flexible OS Selection and Price

Shared Success Business Model

The Windows Embedded business model is principally based on runtime royalties and Microsoft only makes money once an OEM ships a product.

In contrast, Linux distributors like most embedded software companies have built a business model based on high cost services and tools which are typically paid on an upfront basis regardless of whether an OEM ships and is successful. This results in an incentive for them to maximize the time required to develop a system rather than minimize it, resulting in high upfront costs and longer time-to-market.

High IP Protection

One of the most compelling competitive selling points of the Windows Embedded products is the Windows Embedded licensing model that provides legal indemnification to help preserve an OEM's IP rights. The most crucial aspect of this is that the Windows Embedded licensing model has no monetary cap on defense costs provided to partners that have to defend their IP rights.

In contrast, the General Public License (GPL) that governs the licensed use of most embedded Linux distributions leaves OEMs exposed to both risks and constraints regarding code they have developed on embedded Linux.

IP Competitive Advantage

Linux distributions offer no warranties or indemnification relative to the intellectual property (IP) rights it attempts to grant. The concept of "viral licensing," in which a licensee can re-license software and even derivative works without explicit permission from the original licensor, has not been tested in the courts.

Some OEMs think they can protect their intellectual property from being "GPL'd" by linking to the open source code in a particular way, but this concept, too, has not yet been legally tested. OEMs that choose Windows Embedded are not exposed to these risks.

Substantial Investment

Microsoft is committing substantial resources to embedded Research and Development for long-term success in partnership with the largest and most dynamic partner base to enable OEMs choice of expertise and vendor to most efficiently build designs.

Microsoft is making major investments in the embedded market, including a large and dedicated professionally paid development and test staff and continued investments in platforms.

Flexible OS Selection and Price

With Windows Embedded OEMs and ODMs have the flexibility to choose between XPe and CE with both Core and Pro pricing for CE. Also, OEMs and ODMs can rely on the fact that with Windows Embedded, they get the highest degree of commercial quality embedded solutions compared to Public Linux and even commercial embedded Linux variations.