Preface
OMI - the Open Microprocessor
systems Initiative - has been the European Commission's response
to the formidable challenge of keeping European systems industries
competitive in the global embedded systems market. A clear vision
along with ambitious goals and a strong business focus have all
been essential ingredients to its overall success.
In the early 1990's, when it
was considered by some that the dominance of the microprocessor
systems market by American semiconductor companies was unchallenged,
visionaries in European industry were determined to use a window
of opportunity afforded by the emerging RISC (Reduced Instruction
Set Computing) architectures.
It was recognised that an interdisciplinary
approach would be needed for the extensive research and technological
development (RTD) tasks that were ahead. This led to the birth
of the 'focused cluster' approach to OMI within the European
Commission's Information Technology RTD funding programme, ESPRIT.
OMI was implemented as a cross-programme action and has been
a 'role model' for other similar programmes in various domains
since.
Having the required technical
competencies in the European industries and academic and research
institutions was never under question. However, this on its own
was not enough. Effective constituency building, to bring together
the various players from different communities with the aim of
collaborating to achieve strongly business focused objectives,
has been one of the key achievements of OMI. It has left its
mark on the embedded systems industry and the very positive impact
will be felt for many years to come.
The promotion of an open systems
approach, one based on reusable embedded systems IP (Intellectual
Property) building blocks, has been taken up not only by industrial
players that have participated in OMI, but by many others including
the Virtual Socket Interface (VSI) Alliance in the USA.
The book will show the history,
evolution and achievements of OMI and describes concrete examples
of how it has helped to put the technology supplier and user
systems industries in Europe on a strong footing to compete in
the new millennium. The timing of OMI was right for Europe and
has laid the foundation for future embedded systems oriented
programmes that will be needed to capitalise on the success and
momentum of this pioneering initiative.
Frank Cunningham, OMI Co-ordinator
European Commission, |