Earlier this year the Embedded Insiders posed the question, “Where have all the RTOS vendors gone?” During that discussion the Insiders offered that silicon companies have gobbled up independent real-time operating system vendors in an effort to provide their customers with fully integrated, “total” solutions. The (at least perceived) downside of this for developers is, of course, that support for hardware targets diminishes as an RTOS becomes more entrenched within a single silicon vendor’s organization. In this week’s Embedded Insiders we welcome one of the last men standing in the independent RTOS space, Bill Lamie, who is Founder and CEO of Express Logic. Lamie explains why it’s so difficult for RTOS companies to succeed within the auspices of a silicon manufacturer on one hand while facing Adam Smith’s “Invisible Hand.” In light of this, semiconductor companies are now forced to take on more of the integration work that these RTOS companies may no longer be able to support. - Real-Time Operating Systems (RTOS) - Middleware and Development Tools - Mergers & Acquisitions