Embedded Guis Can Impact the Bottom Line of Your Business
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Embedded GUIs Can Impact the Bottom Line of Your Business Authors Shailesh Kumar Gupta & Neeraj Tiwari, ERS-SPG HCL Technologies, NOIDA Dr. Usha Thakur, ATS Technical Research HCL Technologies, Chennai Embedded GUIs: Can Impact the Bottom Line of Your Business © 2009, HCL Technologies Ltd. May, 2009 Embedded GUIs 2 Contents Users Vs Developers ..................................................................................................................................... 4 Purpose ......................................................................................................................................................... 4 GUI in Embedded Devices ............................................................................................................................. 5 Challenges ................................................................................................................................................. 5 Solution ..................................................................................................................................................... 6 Market for Embedded GUI ............................................................................................................................ 6 Players in the GUI Toolkit Space ............................................................................................................... 8 EmPresent – HCL’s GUI Toolkit ................................................................................................................... 10 Components ............................................................................................................................................ 10 Concept to Deployment .......................................................................................................................... 11 Architecture ............................................................................................................................................ 11 Features .................................................................................................................................................. 12 Why use EmPresent? .............................................................................................................................. 14 Benefits ................................................................................................................................................... 15 Embedded GUIs 3 Users Vs Developers How many of you software developers feel that if only users were willing to educate themselves about your application, then it would work like a charm? How many of you (end) users feel that if only software applications could do their job without you having to acquire IT skills, then there would be no problems at all? The gap between the two communities can be bridged by a well–thought out and‐ designed (i.e., highly usable and easy‐to‐use) Graphical User Interface (GUI). Since a GUI is a point of entry as well as exit of a user’s interaction with software applications, there is a great deal of pressure on software developers from businesses to minimize the learning curve of users in the interest of faster‐ time‐to market and from the Web 2.0‐savvy generation to make their user experience highly responsive and intuitive.1 These demands are leading to interesting developments and breakthroughs in GUI technologies for all types of systems, especially embedded systems.2 EmPresent is a platform‐independent GUI toolkit from HCL for embedded device application developers. It comprises a set of powerful visual development tools and widgets to build versatile embedded multilingual GUIs. Purpose Today, industry leaders are regarding GUIs as a business differentiator. Increasingly, GUIs are acting as a means of increasing the sale of products ranging from medical devices and flight entertainment systems to industrial and home automation devices. In this paper we will examine key developments in GUI technologies in the context of embedded devices and their impact on business goals. 1 In this regard, see Ravi Kuppusamy and Usha Thakur, "Rich Internet Applications in Perspective" and Sanjeet Joshi and Subramanyam B.S., "Web 2.0 ‐ The Evolution and Growth of the Interactive Internet" http://www.hcltech.com/hcl‐research/ [April] ‐>represents when the website was accessed. 2 Although the meaning of an embedded system is expressed in various ways, there is a consensus that an embedded system is a computer (with or without a GUI) that is inbuilt into a product and performs dedicated functions. For a fairly comprehensive interpretation of an embedded system, see http://searchenterpriselinux.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid39_gci837507,00.html [April 2009]. Embedded GUIs 4 GUI in Embedded Devices Modern day consumers do not want to be aware of how a gizmo works; they just want to use (read ‘enjoy’) it with the shortest possible learning curve. Today, if there is a high quality home appliance or a medical device without a display screen on the market but has a very sophisticated manual explaining all its features, it will most likely be driven out of the market by counterparts that have a visual display along with features that could be learned within minutes without requiring a manual. This is the expectation that businesses have to meet and it is, therefore, not surprising that they want IT professionals to deliver high‐performing and scalable software applications that have a short development cycle, are easy to implement and maintain, and can be integrated with existing or new systems. This is, of course, easier said than done because the IT landscape has combinations of hardware and software that are not easily interoperable, and that makes the work of GUI embedded designers even more challenging. Challenges The key challenges faced by embedded GUI designers are as follows:3 Conceptualization Specialized widget sets required for each type of embedded device Continuous addition of features to improve performance Multiple prototypes before acceptance Unique development and production environments required for each device Development for multiple devices Parallel GUI Development Limited functionality for embedded platforms Non existence of windowing systems Inability to commence GUI development prior to hardware development Platform Scalability Multiple OS / processor combinations Requirement of a small footprint 3 “EmPresent” – White Paper (2006) http://presenterdownloads.hcltech.com/downloads/EmPresent_Whitepaper_2_.pdf [April 2009]. Embedded GUIs 5 Multiple I/O devices Solution In response to the needs of businesses, there is a growing trend among GUI embedded designers to meet the above‐mentioned challenges by designing GUI Toolkits that will: Provide Templates / layout feature for domain‐specific applications and designer tools Rich set of API’s for integration with other systems and libraries Simulator for quick prototyping Embedded graphics library consisting of a number of widgets or display controls Customizable navigation and dynamic flow of interactive UI application Support Porting and easy changes to GUI Modular and adaptable architecture Drag and drop and eliminate the need for coding Localization and internationalization Predefined Industry Standards Market for Embedded GUI The market for embedded GUI and GUI Toolkits is dependent upon the demand for embedded systems. Today, the embedded chip systems are found in most products ranging from mobile phones and cars to handheld devices and refrigerators.4 Although there is no hard and fast correlation between the growth of consumer and industrial goods and a rise in embedded systems, the fact is that the market for 4 For a good summary of the significance of embedded systems in contemporary society, see the following article by Wayne Wolf, a renowned scholar, “The Embedded System Landscape,” (September 2007) http://www.computer.org/portal/site/computer/menuitem.5d61c1d591162e4b0ef1bd108bcd45f3/index.jsp?&pN ame=computer_level1_article&TheCat=1005&path=computer/homepage/Oct07&file=gei.xml&xsl=article.xsl& [April 2009]. Embedded GUIs 6 embedded systems has been on the rise.5 According to a report by BCC Research, the world market in 2004 for Embedded software was at $1.6 billion and expected to grow to $3.5 billion by 2009, at an average annual growth rate (AAGR) of 16% Embedded hardware was just over $40 billion and expected to grow to $78.7 billion by 2009, at an AAGR 14.2% Embedded board revenues was $3.6 billion and expected to reach $5.9 billion by 2009, at an AAGR of 10%6 In a recent study, Venture Development Corporation (VDC) estimated the global Market for Embedded Software Engineering alone to reach more than $25 billion in the coming years.7 The outlook for current and future IT spending, however, is rather unclear. Gartner has predicted a moderate growth in global IT spending for 2009 with the rider that while in some sector (e.g., Utilities, Healthcare, and Government) the share of IT spending is growing; in others (e.g., Transportation, Financial Services, and Manufacturing) it is declining.8 By contrast, a Forrester research has predicted an overall decline by 3% in 2009 and a rise by 9% in 2010 for global IT spending when measured in US 5 What is interesting is that although the Americas (mainly US) is said to account for nearly half the total revenue, it growth rate is only 11%; that of the Asia/Pacific region is the highest growth rate (22.7%), followed closely