Embedded Software for Electronics & High Tech

In the mobile phone arena, embedded software plays a particularly crucial role in product differentiation. As the market continues to mature, more sophisticated features and functions are needed to differentiate the products. That means software is more important than ever and phones are more complex.

As the importance of embedded software begins to grow, a demand for embedded software solutions and services has increased. The growth is projected to be $2.1 billion in 2006 and more than $8 billion by 2010.* Similarly, the demand for embedded software developers is expected to skyrocket—potentially doubling the demand for hardware developers. And, in 2006, the global demand for embedded software developers will almost double the actual number of embedded hardware developers.*

Accenture is embarking on a major embedded software development strategy, leveraging our long experience developing applications, our very strong proven software development processes, and our global sourcing resources.

One of the key initial embedded software markets that we are addressing is the Symbian ecosystem, and we are already developing software for a variety of projects using this ecosystem.

^*Source: 2004 VDC Report on Embedded Software

Competitive dynamics, technological changes, business economics and corporate internal pressures are forcing change within industry.

Challenges the industry faces include:

Higher Development Costs ^*

• 62% of R&D budget is spent on software and vendor management
• 67% of today’s microprocessor cost is embedded software
  
  

Longer Product Time to Market ^*

• 24% of projects canceled due to unrecoverable slip in schedule
• 54% of software designs completed behind schedule (average 3.9 months)
  
  

Lower Product Quality ^*

• 33% of produced devices do not meet functionality or performance requirements
  
  
• 80% of development effort is spent correcting errors not discovered early in a project

With our experience in this fast-paced and highly fragmented industry, we can help you develop the capabilities necessary to achieve high performance.

Accenture’s professionals offer a deep knowledge of technology skills and extensive experience across the value chain. They incorporate proven tools & methods to ‘fast track’ transition and reduce time-to-benefits which can provide significant initial cost savings and cost reductions over time.

Accenture offers an Embedded Software practice and offshore embedded development capabilities supported by a global Program Management Office structure responsible for project coordination and management support.

^*Source: Wind River

Accenture offers three specific embedded software solutions to clients.

Embedded Software Diagnostics – This approach analyzes the key process, people, technology and organization issues, compares current capabilities to best practices, identifies key gaps, and creates an addressable plan of action to increase efficiency and effectiveness of development and testing practices.

Embedded Software Co-sourcing – Delivery of cost- and time-effective embedded software solutions and services through a global delivery framework and pool of dedicated skilled resources.

Interoperability Testing Co-sourcing – Central coordination of overall testing execution, eliminating redundancies and improving speed, quality and consistency.