Express Logic's ThreadX RTOS Ranked By Developers As #3 In Hard Real-Time OS Market Share

Business Wire, June 20, 2005

SAN DIEGO -- Express Logic, Inc., the worldwide leader in royalty-free real-time operating systems (RTOS), today announced that its widely used ThreadX(R) RTOS ranked third among general-purpose, hard real-time operating systems, based on data from a recent survey conducted by CMP, Inc. (Embedded Systems Programming, June, 2005, pp. 36-40). The CMP survey measured RTOS market share through questions posed to a large group of embedded developers, including attendees of Embedded Systems Conference, and subscribers to EE Times and Embedded Systems Programming.

A key survey question asked developers which operating system they currently use. As can be seen in the chart, Wind River's VxWorks(R) topped the results with an 18.4% response. The next highest-ranking hard real-time OS was QNX with a 6.1% response, followed by ThreadX with a total of 5.4%, with combined results from Express Logic and Green Hills Software sales channels. Other operating systems that do not handle hard real-time requirements, such as Red Hat Linux, Microsoft Windows CE and NT Embedded earned between 7 and 13%. TI's DSP/BIOS received 7%, but it is only available for certain TI DSPs.

Because ThreadX can be purchased directly from Express Logic or through Green Hills Software under license from Express Logic, respondents were asked to specify whether they purchased ThreadX from GHS or from EL. The survey showed that total ThreadX use was 5.4%, putting it ahead of Nucleus (3.7%), pSOS (4.5%), eCOS (4.3%), LynxOS (3.6%), INTEGRITY (2.8%), OSE (1.4%), and RTXC (1.3%). In addition, ThreadX outpaced several Linux distributions including Monta Vista Linux (5.0%), FSM Labs' RT Linux (1.5%), and LynuxWorks' BlueCat Linux (1.4%).

Looking to the future, a related question asked developers which OS they were likely or highly likely to use in the next 12 months. The results here were even more favorable for ThreadX. Here ThreadX scored 11.0%, and ranked second only to VxWorks at 20.4% among hard real-time, general-purpose RTOSes

"These developer survey results show a strong penetration of ThreadX into the embedded systems market," commented John Carbone, vice president of marketing of Express Logic. "ThreadX is gaining in popularity, and is now deployed in over 200 million electronic products worldwide, including HP inkjet printers and digital cameras, Welch Allyn portable patient monitors, DriveCam video recording units, and Panasonic wireless LAN cards. This survey shows that developers are more likely to choose ThreadX than many competing RTOS products."

Express Logic's ThreadX RTOS is a small-footprint, fast, royalty-free real-time operating system ideal for high volume, resource constrained devices requiring fast time to market.

Shipping and Availability

ThreadX is available in full source code form, royalty free, for most popular 32-bit architectures, at license prices starting at $12,500.

About Express Logic

Headquartered in San Diego, CA, Express Logic offers the most advanced run-time solution for deeply embedded applications, including the popular ThreadX(R) RTOS, the high-performance NetX(TM) TCP/IP stack, the FileX(TM) embedded MS-DOS compatible file system, and the USBX(TM) Host/Device USB protocol stack. All products from Express Logic include full source-code and have no run-time royalties. For more information about Express Logic solutions, please visit www.expresslogic.com, call 1-888-THREADX, or email inquires to sales@expresslogic.com.

ThreadX is a registered trademark of Express Logic, Inc. NetX, FileX, CANX, USBX, preemption-threshold, picokernel, UDP fast path technology, are trademarks of Express Logic, Inc. All other brands or product names are the property of their respective holders.