THRIVING DEVELOPMENT

ECOSYSTEM SUPPORTS

INTEL PROCESSORS

MARKET OUTLOOK

M icroprocessor chips are the all-important “brains” of any industrial system, so they require a very special kind of support infrastructure. Unlike other types of chips such as DRAMs,

A/D converters, or peripherals, microprocessors need software, program-development tools, hardware-design tools, operating systems, debuggers, and much more. Surveys have proven that engineers value these tools highly and actually prefer using microprocessors that have the broadest and best support.

Well-supported microprocessors are not only preferred by engineering teams, but they’re more productive, too. A microprocessor with a healthy third-party ecosystem provides more options for the engineers, better support for the team, and broader access to a skilled talent pool. When it comes to microprocessor support tools and software, more is definitely better.

Intel’s microprocessor family spans four decades and dozens of generations, so it has one of the world’s largest and richest support through software, develop-ment tools, and talent. That broad-based, global, and ever-expanding ecosystem make Intel’s microproces-sors uniquely effective in powering today’s industrial and embedded devices.

Tools of the Trade

To an engineering team, the term “development tools” covers a lot of territory. It encompasses the software that programmers need to do their jobs, such as Intel® C Compiler or Java* interpreter, a debugger for finding problems, a code profiler for fine-tuning performance, and other software designed to help programmers be productive. To a hardware engineer, the development tools might include an oscilloscope, logic analyzer, emulator, debug probes, and other bench-top equip-ment for product development. In both cases, these are the tools of their trade; they can’t be productive without them. A carpenter would never start work without a saw or a chisel nearby; programmers and engineers also need their tools close at hand. The greater the variety of tools they can choose from, the

more efficient and productive they can be. And like any skilled craftsman, product developers

have learned over the years which tools they prefer. They accumulate skill, experience, and expertise with certain tools that naturally make them more produc-tive. Conversely, learning to use new or unfamiliar tools takes time—time that could have been spent in productive engineering, programming, or development.

Firsthand survey data bears this out. For many years, UBM Electronics has surveyed engineers and programmers around the world, discovering how and why they’ve chosen one microprocessor chip over another. Remarkably, the most important criteria for developers were related to development tools. Pro-grammers and engineers (as well as their managers) strongly prefer microprocessors that have the broad-est range of development tools. Why? Simply because they’re more productive when they can rely on their preferred tools. Conversely, they’re less productive when forced to use an unfamiliar tool or one from an unfamiliar vendor. In a nutshell, the breadth of devel-opment tools is an excellent indicator of the popularity of a given microprocessor, and vice versa.

This characteristic often feeds a virtuous cycle, making popular microprocessors even more popular. As engineers gravitate toward one family of micro-processor chips, its success breeds more success. The vendors supplying development tools (such as C compilers, operating systems, lab equipment, etc.) sense a growing market, offering even more development tools, which in turn leads to even more market acceptance.

Third-party vendors of development tools—that is, companies that are neither microprocessor suppliers nor microprocessor customers, but independent busi-nesses focused only on tools—are naturally drawn to the most-popular microprocessor. After all, why offer tools for an unpopular chip with a small market share when it’s just as easy to offer the same tools for a popular chip with a larger available market? And as we have seen, the presence of many competing tool vendors encourages engineering teams to select the most-popular microprocessors, further encouraging the virtuous cycle. Success breeds more success.

2

MARKET OUTLOOK

THRIVING DEVELOPMENT ECOSYSTEM SUPPORTS INTEL PROCESSORSMARKET OUTLOOK

3

MARKET OUTLOOK

THRIVING DEVELOPMENT ECOSYSTEM SUPPORTS INTEL PROCESSORSMARKET OUTLOOK

In this kind of environment, it makes sense for prod-uct managers, heads of engineering, CTOs, and other technical and management professionals to play to their strengths, that is, to use the most popular and best-supported microprocessors. It’s counterproductive to use less-popular or poorly supported chips, which forces programmers and engineers to adapt, sidestep, or relearn their basic technical skills. A skilled pianist could learn to play a concerto backwards – but why? The Deep End of the Talent Pool

Another advantage of building products around a well-supported microprocessor family is the access it provides to a broader talent pool. Hiring talented engineers can be difficult, and delays in locating the required personnel translate directly into delays in launching the product. Time-to-market should never be sacrificed just because it’s hard to hire the appro-priate people.

This becomes even more problematic as industrial development edges into new areas that include wire-less connectivity, security, multicore processors, audio/video processing, virtualization, remote updates, and more. Each new technology taxes the existing talent pool, making it hard to locate engineers or program-mers with adequate experience. It’s exponentially harder to find candidates with the right technology background and experience with a poorly supported processor. Relying on popular Intel® microprocessors reduces two hiring variables to just one.

Even companies that outsource or contract some of their development effort will find that using well-supported microprocessors makes the hand-off much easier. It can be difficult sourcing a contractor with experience with an obscure, little-used, or specialized chip. On the other hand, it’s generally quite easy to find talented development teams with years of experience using Intel microprocessors. It’s also easier to shift development work from one team to another, or to add teams, when they’ve all got a similar background with the Intel® architecture.

Operating Systems Provide Software FoundationOperating systems such as Android, Windows, Linux, and others are becoming the centerpiece of new industrial and embedded systems. Some products even run multiple operating systems at once, using a technique called virtualization. The operating system provides the “personality” for the new product, and determines what additional software it will run. The choice of operating system is therefore an important one, and an issue hotly debated within most product-development teams.

Therefore, as with development tools, it’s important to select a microprocessor that supports the greatest variety of operating systems. If a certain micropro-cessor doesn’t support Android™ (for example), it’s clearly out of the running for an Android-based plat-form or product.

But the selection goes deeper than that. Not all Android™, Windows®, or Linux* platforms are the same (to cite just three examples). Just because a given chip runs Android, that doesn’t mean it will run other Android software. The same is true for Windows, Linux, and most any operating system. There’s a big difference between supporting an operating system, and supporting an operating system’s other programs. Operating system “support” is a vague and tricky concept.

For example, Intel microprocessors have supported the Windows operating system for more than 25 years. And even though some other microprocessor families have at various times also supported Windows, they were (and still are) unable to run popular Windows applications. In the 1990s, for instance, the MIPS* family of microprocessor chips could run Windows – but not other Windows programs. The ability to run Windows itself, but little else, provided little value to the market, and Windows-for-MIPS was short-lived.

For today’s development teams, it’s important not to make the same mistake. Much of the value of an operating system is the access it unlocks to third-

MARKET OUTLOOK

THRIVING DEVELOPMENT ECOSYSTEM SUPPORTS INTEL PROCESSORS

4

MARKET OUTLOOK

THRIVING DEVELOPMENT ECOSYSTEM SUPPORTS INTEL PROCESSORSMARKET OUTLOOK

party software, applications, middleware, device drivers, and other programs. But, while Intel may not have exclusive access to those assets, they are not universally available for any microprocessor. Software compatibility is a two-part deal: it must be supported by the operating system and by the microprocessor. One without the other is pointless, like a plug without a socket.

SummaryMicroprocessors are complex in many ways, not

least in the complicated interrelationships between the chip, software, operating systems, development tools,

available talent, and third-party support. Any one of these without the others is only a partial solution. All of them taken together provide a thriving ecosystem where innovation, engineering, and product design can flourish. Product developers themselves prefer a well-supported microprocessor that has the broad-est and richest array of third-party offerings. They’re more productive, happy, and effective when they can use (and reuse) the tools they prefer, combined with a microprocessor they’re familiar with. For all of these reasons, and many more, Intel’s microprocessors are the developers’ choice.

© 2013 UBM Tech, a UBM company. All Rights Reserved. © 2013 Intel Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Intel, the Intel logo, C Compiler and Intel Architecture are trademarks of Intel Corporation in the United States and/or other countries.*Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.Information in this document is provided in connection with Intel® products. No license, express or implied, by Estoppel or otherwise, to any intel-lectual property rights is granted by this document, except as provided in Intel’s terms and conditions of sales for such products, Intel assumes no liability whatsoever, and Intel disclaims an express or implied warranty, relating to sale and/or use of Intel products including liability or warranties relating to fitness for a particular purpose, merchantability, or infringement of any patent, copyright or other intellectual property right. A “Mission Critical Application” is any application in which failure of the Intel Product could result, directly or indirectly, in personal injury or death. Should you purchase or use Intel’s products for any such mission critical application, you shall indemnify and hold Intel and its subsidiaries, subcontrac-tors and affiliates, and the directors, officers and employees of each, harmless against all claims costs, damages, and expenses and reasonable attorney’s fees arising in any way out of such mission critical application, whether or not Intel or its subcontractor was negligent in the design, manufacture, or warning ofthe Intel product or any of its parts. Intel may make changes to specifications and product descriptions at any time, without notice. Designers must not rely on the absence or charac-teristics of any features or instructions marked “reserved” or “undefined.” Intel reserves these for future definition and shall have no responsibility whatsoever for conflicts or incompatibilities arising from future changes to them. The information here is subject to change without notice. Do not finalize a design with this information. The products described in this document may contain design defects or errors known as errata which may cause the product to deviate from published specifications. Current characterized errata are available on request. Contact your local Intel sales office or your distributor to obtain the latest specifications and before placing your product order. Copies of documents which have an order number and are referenced in this document, or other Intel literature, may be obtained by calling 1-800-548-4725, or by visiting Intel’s Web site at www.intel.com.

ABOUT INTEL

Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) is a world leader in computing innovation. The company designs and builds

the essential technologies that serve as the foundation for the world’s computing devices. Additional

information about Intel is available at www.intel.com/pressroom and blogs.intel.com.