ARM extends into IoT software
The so-called mbed platform is the first product of a new business unit focused on the Internet of Things and the latest effort at unifying the fragmented sector.
Embedded software companies are just beginning to discover their partner ARM is now a competitor.
Christian Legare, chief technology officer of Micrium, heard the news from a reporter shortly after he arrived in Silicon Valley for this week’s ARM Tech Con, where mbed is being announced. Just a week ago, Micrium announced its own end-to-end software for IoT nodes and clouds. He took a wait-and-see position on the news, saying he wants to find out details of ARM’s software in meetings this week.
In some ways, "the writing was on the wall," Legare said. "In PCs, Intel invested hundred of millions for Linux. In smartphones, Google invested for Android, and in embedded, we expected a similar situation."
ARM’s IoT unit joins at least 17 companies providing an embedded OS, including two from Microsoft. At least seven are based on Linux or other open source code, including FreeRTOS, one of the most widely used, according to the latest EETimes embedded systems study.
ARM has "huge market access, and it knows its licensees requirements months before anyone else, so it has a huge market advantage," said Richard Barry, the developer and founder of the company behind FreeRTOS. The OS move is "analogous to ARM’s compiler strategy where it invests heavily in free compilers and also promotes its own heavily. ARM is full of contradictions… It both wants to enable processors and dominate the tools market at the expense of its ecosystem."
Christopher Rommel, an analyst for VDC Research Group, said ARM’s entrance clearly "squeezes the market for Micrium, Express Logic, and others that target this segment." This is "a further commoditization of traditional OSes. Increasingly, the future viability of OS vendors rests on their ability to develop a suite of runtime software and tools, as companies such as Express Logic and Wind River have been doing."
Bryan Kester, CEO of the IoT cloud provider SeeControl, supported the mbed effort in ARM’s press release. "This is a much-needed effort to streamline the universe of technologies and options that define the Internet of Things," he said. "The ARM platform offers a superior mix of IoT security tools, protocols and enabling technologies."
ARM’s new IoT group aims to "accelerate the pace of IoT uptake," said Krisztian Flautner, the group’s general manager. "We are in the early phases of figuring out what the ecosystem needs and these are the first few elements we have identified." He would not offer details on the group’s roadmap
In its press materials, ARM called the IoT "a long-term play for us that cuts across all our verticals as well as making money in its own right." Though the mbed OS targets Cortex-M chips, it could have impact on Cortex-A and -R systems, because "smartphones and tablets will be a primary IoT gateway."
ARM’s chip licensees made up the brunt of the third-party companies supporting for the mbed launch. Supporters include Atmel, CSR, Farnell, Freescale, IBM, Marvell, Megachips, Multitech, Nordic Semiconductor, NXP, Renesas, Seecontrol, Semtech, Silicon Labs, Stream Technologies, ST, Telenor Connexion, Telefonica, Thundersoft, u-blox, wot.io, and Zebra.
ARM is not alone in launching IoT software for its processor cores. Imagination Technologies already has its FlowCloud device and cloud platform for its MIPS processors.
Zach Shelby, a director in ARM’s IoT group and a former Sensinode manager, said the mbed cloud software has its origins in the products of Sensinode, which ARM acquired in August 2013. The mbed OS was developed in-house, he said, describing both parts as "foundation software that doesn’t differentiate" products.
The mbed OS supports a host of IoT protocols, including Thread, 802.15.4 for both 6LoWPAN and Zigbee, TLS/DTLS, CoAP, HTTP, MQTT, and Lightweight M2M. It also supports networking over Bluetooth Smart, cellular (from 2G to LTE), and WiFi.
Early versions of the mbed OS code will be available before the end of the year, but the first production devices using it are not expected until early 2015.
Most of the underlying crypto, comms, and device management elements will be present in the first release; features will be added over time, Shelby said. The typical memory footprint for the OS in 2015 on an M3-class device will be 32-64K RAM and 256K flash.
The mbed server code is intended to "provide a bridge between the protocols on IoT devices and the APIs used by web developers," Shelby said.
It will be provided free for prototyping and small scale use. Those deploying it for large commercial public or private cloud services will be charged a royalty (which ARM has not disclosed).
There’s no shortage of efforts to unify protocols and APIs for the IoT in the cloud. The Universal Plug and Play group has developed standards. Qualcomm has provided its AllJoyn approach to the Linux Foundation, creating the AllSeen effort.
The ARM mbed OS will mainly be supplied as open source code that users can modify under an Apache 2.0 license. Some of the advanced features in the device OS or server will be provided in binary form, but partners can negotiate access to modify it, too.
— Rick Merritt, Silicon Valley Bureau Chief, EETimes 
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