Alameda, California embedded software specialist Wind River Systems Inc claims it is the first major real-time operating system vendor to sign with Novell Inc to resell Novell Embedded System Technology, to bring NetWare technology to embedded applications. It has integrated NEST with its VxWorks real-time operating system and design environment and reckons that the kit will be popular initially in the printer market, but that developers working on Personal Digital Assistants and television set-top boxes will also find it of use. Those companies implementing it will be able to plug VxWorks-based NEST devices directly into NetWare local area networks bringing industry-standard networking technologies, like TCP/IP and Simple Network Management Protocol, to embedded systems. VxWorks is hardware- and processor-independent so developers will be able to move VxWorks-based NEST devices from one system to another, said the company. The WindPower product family for NEST includes VxWorks; a set of cross-development tools that are used on a host development system; and a range of communications software options for the target connection to the host. Developers can use the company’s WindPower Tools series-including, the WindView system visualisation tool for analysing the dynamic operation of an embedded system; the Wind C++ Gateway for ObjectCenter for programming in C++; the StethoScope real-time data visualisation, profiling and debugging tool; and the VxSim tool for prototyping and simulating VxWorks applications. The company’s WindNet series of advanced networking products is also available. Wind River will be reselling the NEST software developer’s kit for $50,000.
