And the current leader in the Embedded horse race is.....

Microsoft.

Over at InternetNews there is an article on MS growth in the embedded space:

http://www.internetnews.com/ent-news/article.php/3435501

For me this is the most exciting technology segment out there today.  The fact I have a phone today which has more power than my home computer in 1998 is simply astounding to me.  I recall seriously investigating a job as a C developer around '97 in an embedded shop building device drivers for automated machinery based off of Wind River and I have to admit sometimes I wax wistful...

The sleeper in the article is RIM, Research In Motion.  They only get a one line mention, but if I were to name the most worthy competitor to MS in the embedded space, it would be RIM and not Linux. 

Now it wouldn't be right if I didn't quote something from the article.  I want to build off this quote from John Starkweather, "We see Linux as falling in the same category, continuing the trend of proprietization and fragmentation. Linux lacks mature tool chains, and embedded software vendors that support Linux in embedded devices are further diluting and fragmenting the code base."

So the mojo isn't exactly in having cool tools, its in the delivery channel and overall community supporting those tools.  This is an area where CE is gaining significant ground and doing a great job. 

To be balanced on the Linux side of the coin, I should announce BusyBox 1.0 came out this past weekend and there are several other community sites of note on the Linux side of the house, IE Scratchbox and Open Embedded. 

I'll part with giving you the free download link to XPEmbedded and  a link to the MSDN Embedded portal. Check them out I'm sure you'll be impressed.