World your oyster?

Software development is not only recognised by the electronics industry as being the biggest challenge it faces, but also by all those enabled by it. At so many levels, software defines the world around us. It is hard to find any modern day phenomenon that isn’t, in some way, characterised by bits and bytes. But software is only an artefact; created by the widening use of microprocessors and microcontrollers instead of hardwired circuits. Ironically, replacing hardwired elements with software defined computers has only motivated the industry to create programmable devices with evermore transistors and hence greater propensity to be programmed. There is a rapidly aging adage within the embedded world that goes something like ‘transistors are cheap, software is expensive’. The essence of this dichotomy is undeniable and its impact far reaching. But this explosion in software complexity is accompanied by a dearth of software engineering resource. For some, this presents an opportunity; to provide software design services. To be a successful provider of design services, it would seem reasonable to specialise in an area seeing rapid and continued growth, such as telecommunications. This is exactly what Aricent offers to device and infrastructure manufacturers worldwide. With a customer list which includes Nokia, Samsung, Alcatel-Lucent, Infineon and Cisco, there are few companies in the communications business with whom it doesn’t engage. In fact, all of the top ten handset and communications infrastructure manufacturers are Aricent customers.