Embedded System Developers Turn To Android and Linux For Operating Systems
It might not come as much of a surprise, but according to a recent survey conducted by EE Times, Linux continues to tear up the charts in the embedded market (embedded refers to special-purpose PCs found in things like TVs, media players, cars, machinery and so forth).
Between 2012 and 2013, companies began to shift more of their embedded systems over to Android, representing an increase from 13% to 16%. Likewise, Ubuntu and FreeRTOS shares also rose, from 12% to 13% each. Debian use remained the same, while most of the other selections saw some slight decreases. Most notably, Wind River's VxWorks dropped to 7%, from 11%.
Interestingly, in-house/custom solutions saw an increase from 22% to 24%, which contrasts with the results seen from the last report where users claimed they'd be making a shift over to Android - 34% of users, in fact, versus 28% from this latest report.
Regardless of that, the trends bode well for Linux. Site LinuxGizmos did the math to figure out where exactly Linux stands overall in this chart, and found that 2013's usage sits at 50%, versus 46% from last year. Given Android is a "free" operating system, and a robust one at that, it seems likely that it will continue to rise straight through the next year, although given the increase of in-house systems, it'll be interesting to see if that's a trend that continues as well.
