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PrefaceOMI - 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 |
Copyright © 2001, Cheshire
Henbury, Created by Paul T. Kidd, Revised March 2001
http://www.CheshireHenbury.com
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