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Saturday, January 29, 2011

Alternative Power Vertical Markets

The alternative "Green" power market is composed of various verticals. Some of the most promising in bringing products to market are in the niches of:

Wind

Solar

Fuel Cells

Bio Mass

Each vertical has it's own associated eco-system . As these verticals evolve the products they generate will need to be or become smarter and totally digital so they can interact and be facilitated and controlled from the internet. At the heart of these products will be microcontrol themed chips. These "smart" chips will need to be managed by a lean robust RTOS . An example can be find at http://www.rowebots.com/

An example of a company selling  a really cool diversity of Green Products is:

http://www.solardyne.com/index.html

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Headhunters

No not the natives from the far off Amazon rain forest but talented folks who match open jobs with skill sets possessed by people who can perform them. Headhunters come in all shades but the best ones often having worked in the industry they recruit into. In the case of the embedded technology community the waterfront is very small in terms of reliable and seasoned Headhunters. It's key for the recruiter to have come from the community so they have a feel for the buzz words, trends and applications involved. How are they going to know how to make the right match if they can't play that way. Here is my all time "Headhunter Hall of Fame "These half dozen players exhibit a combination of industry knowledge, ethics and enthusiasm to make the right fit and really assist someone’s career goals.
Top of Form
Bottom of Form

Pierre Clemenceau
REALTIME RECRUITING
1-301-279-9044
Dannice Macey
Shorehire
Aaron Steele
ASI Executive Search
aaron@asiexecutivesearch.com

803-432-4199

Chris Shoulet

Top Dog Recruiting
301-530-9694

Lisa McCann
Weldon Edwards

weldoned@verizon.netLisa McCann

760-728-1897

Jason Parker
Executive Recruiter
Electronic  Search, Inc.

Not really In the Embedded Space totally but a great guy and cool guy
Paul Reino
http://www.accuritstaffing.com/
610.942.9810

Saturday, January 22, 2011

Power & Energy Management

Several years ago no one would have believed that such an area as pedestrian a topic as power would ever be such a hot topic. In today’s energy dependent world the areas of alternative energy such as wind, solar, bio mass, fuel cells and hybrid combinations drive talk at the water cooler and Wall Street. Everyone is racing for solutions that can become deployed at a cost effective price. In order to field this type of solution set several types of technology need to be evaluated. They are a combination of hardware and software and can be both at the chip and board set level. Many papers and posts address this area. See: http://greenprofs.com/
This site focuses on all things GREEN especially companies and technologies to monitor.
I want to cite several groups I feel are pushing the envelope in various areas of the evolving “Green Revolution” They are for the most part small agile entrepreneurial teams focused on one of the above niche power areas.
Protonex                                                      http://www.protonex.com
Tactical Environmental Systems                 http://www.tacticalsys.com
Tesla Industries Inc                                      http://www.teslaind.com
Lex Products                                                http://www.lexproducts.com
CME                                                            http://www.custom-mfg-com
Diversified Technology                              http://www.diversifiedtechnology.com
Bren-Tronics Inc.                                       http://www.bren-tronics.com
Optima Batteries                                        http://www.optima.com
PATCO                                                      http://www.patcoelectronics.com

Several  companies doing interesting things in the RTOS and embedded computing areas that support power efficient green oriented microcontoller designed products are:


Thursday, January 20, 2011

Physical Security Channel Gymnastics

Channel Development in the Physical Security space has become more oriented to digital technology and solutions over the past few years. Physical Security in the past was thought of as access control and fences with the occasional camera thrown in. Ten years ago cameras got more pronounced in applications but without the web based connectivity they now can offer. Biometrics concepts are popular but still waiting for the right systems integrator and channel outlet to pull it all together. The entire marketplace for channels in this space is going through some profound changes. Physical Security integrators have largely come from roots in IT or actual barrier type security such as access control, alarms or fences. Over time channels and integrators with video experience have emerged. This was largely pre 9/11. Today’s post 9/11 environment places a set of threats in play that can only be addressed by groups with embedded applications background. This is because the skill sets required to integrate cameras with sensors , wrap in biometric analysis, deploy sensors such as seismic, acoustic , magnetic and correlate with ground based radar are not the usual skill sets found in the commercial space. On the other hand the DOD side hasn’t had a successful track record in being nimble enough to address application areas in critical infrastructure or border surveillance. The big drawback being despite much rhetoric funding has been very hard to identify and compete for. With all this as background I believe you can identify channel and integration players in physical security to fall into these categories. I have also given examples of each in order to better frame the discussion.
Tier One :   Large Well Known players
                    Boeing
                    SAIC
                    DRS Technologies
Tier Two     Wackenhut Securitiy
Tier Three   Regional Systems Integrators
                    Bearcom
                    Secure USA
Various individual component companies in the physical security space making cameras, sensors or all types , biometric software, handheld devices , etc. have their own channels and integrators they use as force multipliers to pursue opportunities  . This model is not uncommon in the embedded space and before that in the era of the minicomputer the same dynamic was in play. The common ground seems to be every time an area reaches critical mass and turns from combinations of small boutique firms to larger entities it is driven by amalgamation of technology via  mergers & acquisitions. I believe and predict that trend is upon us now in the physical security space. I see going forward that old line companies with customer facing relationships will start buying companies that have enabling technology and can help them offer a richer solution set.  My experience has been in developing contacts and driving collaborative projects through various methods with all three tiers. I have the application depth and personal rapport to communicate at the top and to the technology factions within each group. The result has been gaining collaboration in projects ranging from border security to critical infrastructure protection and related law enforcement applications.

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

HSCB: Human Cultural Social Behavior the New Age Warfare Model:

I have been following the work in this area for over one year and find the whole concept to be very relevant to today’s asymmetrical conflict model. In past conflicts over history it has usually been easy to tell the difference between sides. Today in the era of worldwide Islamic Jihad these differentiations are difficult to detect. In no time before in recorded history has one group taken such continuous steps to conduct a campaign of terrorism. Even in times of the Irish freedom movement of the 1930’s-80’s ordinary groups were not selected as targets. The Islamic Jihad has been especially vicious in deadly waves of IED attacks. Not only has the Islamic strategy included IED’s but also the activity of infiltration by enlisting in the security forces of Iraq and Afghanistan. When an opportunity presents itself the infiltrated asset will try to harm coalition personal without warning. This “Trojan horse” strategy has been quite effective and has no real foolproof countermeasure. Leveraging HSC techniques could mitigate taking causalities from both approaches and warrants a very close look from the war fighter community. Truly actionable intelligence needs to be presented and sometimes this is a challenge for the model driven approach of today. HSCB practice calls for a census like interview to be conducted to obtain information from which models can derive patterns. Unfortunately the interviews taken by the Human Terrain Teams can become stagnate over time. Updated profiles need to be generated and one tool that can enable that approach is leveraging various ISR assets to collect information that can portray immediate change over historic or gradual change. The below links provide a wealth of data on  HSCB
http://www.informs-sim.org/wsc10papers/066.pdf

Monday, January 17, 2011

Industrial Computing Ten Years Latter

In the late 90's I worked for Maxwell Technologies , http://maxwell.com/ industrial computing group -I-Bus.
The time there allowed me to meet some great people and gain a perspective of an emerging computing phenomenon. Mini Computers were dead, workstations dying and the world was thinking everything could be done on a standard PC. Cooler heads prevailed and it was realized that a core of demanding applications could not be addressed by a standard garden variety PC. The applications frequently fell and fall into the areas of medical, military, military, and highly rugged industrial and to some extent security. Industrial computer companies have come and gone over the time I've spent away from the market but I believe customers still have a core set of applications that will continue to require features not present in technology one can acquire at Best Buy.  A company I’ve followed for quite awhile is Arbor Technologies.  See:
                              http://www.arbor.com.tw/

                           http://www.arbor-usa.com/

I recall an interview with Call Center Magazine, http://www.callcentermagazine.com where I made comments on various types of channels and distribution schemes dealing with the industrial computer players of the time. Most are gone now and at the time Arbor had not started in its present form. I was interviewed by noted industry expert, Zippy Grigonis,
www.richardgrigonis.com. Zippy being his insightful self forced me to spell out exactly what a good channel partner consisted of. I countered with one who is willing to make an economic investment as well as pay the “dues” to be in markets. This means going to all the right shows and being not only a corporate good citizen but also willing to advertise and make their brand know while at the same promoting yours.

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Project Design V&V Debug & Process


      Certifying embedded software to meet project requirements can be challenging and expensive.  You need the best tools to simplify and to shorten the process while reducing overall costs and increasing overall quality.  The tools are necessary, but by themselves they are insufficient.  You also need an approach, a process, to tie the tools together.  The process will incorporate architecture, providing structure and procedures.  With the addition of best practice guidelines gained from experience, the process becomes a full-blown methodology.  You will also need support to help in the transition to a new toolset and a new methodology.  Besides training, support can customize the tools for your specific needs, help to integrate legacy code, and provide expertise with the use of the tools.  So a total solution is comprised of the triad: software tools, a methodology, and support.


Figure 1 Solution Triad - Software Tools, a Methodology, and Support


      I have effectively used the defined Solution Triad to facilitate project management
responsibilities that I have been involved with.  Representative project Areas include the vertical markets of video phone design, vehicles; both commercial and military and industrial
automation. I favor the traditional “requirements v” approach to establish the foundation of my
project management strategy.  I have led project management teams to develop products as well as system integration efforts. Project team management utilized techniques from such methodologies as QED and TRIZ.
     Managing and preserving intellectual property is one of the key aspects of project management today. In a technical world where there are hundreds of ways in which a potential product/system integration effort can be rolled out the way in which your organizations I.P. can be packaged and transferred as “value add” or protected can become a huge corporate advantage.
  
      Software Verification & Validation (V&V) is a system engineering process for evaluating the correctness and quality of a software product throughout its life cycle.  It employs a variety of software engineering methods, techniques, and tools.   Unintentionally overlooked during the beginning of a product’s life cycle, the costs of V&V rise dramatically the longer it is deferred.  V&V is not easy because
·      Software applications are numerous, novel, and complex.
·      Each application has unique design elements and a large number of potential states or modes.
·      Although software technology is essentially unlimited in its applicability to real world problems, it is extremely sensitive to minor details in program and/or data.
·      Software products are difficult to specify with precision and difficult to test exhaustively.  Often they are engineered with immature processes.

In projects several years ago I worked with several types of debug and V&V tools. They were from TNI-Valiosys and Multiprocessor Toolsmith’s. I’m sure that today there is more robust tools and will be researching and reporting on them in future posts.


Project Design V&V Process & Debug Process Review


      Certifying embedded software to meet project requirements can be challenging and expensive.  You need the best tools to simplify and to shorten the process while reducing overall costs and increasing overall quality.  The tools are necessary, but by themselves they are insufficient.  You also need an approach, a process, to tie the tools together.  The process will incorporate architecture, providing structure and procedures.  With the addition of best practice guidelines gained from experience, the process becomes a full-blown methodology.  You will also need support to help in the transition to a new toolset and a new methodology.  Besides training, support can customize the tools for your specific needs, help to integrate legacy code, and provide expertise with the use of the tools.  So a total solution is comprised of the triad: software tools, a methodology, and support.



Figure 1 Solution Triad - Software Tools, a Methodology, and Support


      I have effectively used the defined Solution Triad to facilitate project management
responsibilities that I have been involved with.  Representative project Areas include the vertical markets of video phone design, vehicles; both commercial and military and industrial
automation. I favor the traditional “requirements v” approach to establish the foundation of my
project management strategy.  I have led project management teams to develop products as well as system integration efforts. Project team management utilized techniques from such methodologies as QED and TRIZ.
     Managing and preserving intellectual property is one of the key aspects of project management today. In a technical world where there are hundreds of ways in which a potential product/system integration effort can be rolled out the way in which your organizations I.P. can be packaged and transferred as “value add” or protected can become a huge corporate advantage.

Keeping the Process Simple




Here is a close look at my favorite project kick off approach. Define things in the below fashion.

Figure 1 Traditional V Process

      Software Verification & Validation (V&V) is a system engineering process for evaluating the correctness and quality of a software product throughout its life cycle.  It employs a variety of software engineering methods, techniques, and tools.   Unintentionally overlooked during the beginning of a product’s life cycle, the costs of V&V rise dramatically the longer it is deferred.  V&V is not easy because
·      Software applications are numerous, novel, and complex.
·      Each application has unique design elements and a large number of potential states or modes.
·      Although software technology is essentially unlimited in its applicability to real world problems, it is extremely sensitive to minor details in program and/or data.
·      Software products are difficult to specify with precision and difficult to test exhaustively.  Often they are engineered with immature processes.

In projects several years ago I worked with several types of debug and V&V tools. They were from TNI-Valiosys and Multiprocessor Toolsmith’s. I’m sure that today there is more robust tools and will be researching and reporting on them in future posts.

 

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Smart Phones & the DOD Goal

Every soldier with a Smart Phone. For months we have been hearing that the government wants to give each soldier a phone as he enters active duty and then add applications to it as the person progresses through their duty assignments. This is a great theory and I’m all for it. Numerous articles cover this topic well. The latest best piece I’ve seen can be reviewed at this blog which I believe is one of the better ones out there.  See  http://airsoftinformations.blogspot.com/2011/01/intel-for-individual.html
My biggest question and I believe the biggest issue isn’t the technology. It’s who is going to fund all of this?  On one hand you have the government who wants or will want applications for $9.99 and the existing DOD contractor infrastructure from the Cold War. This is reality and means that unless someone can answer the funding model we will continue to talk about what might be? Does anyone have any ideas on how to break this logjam?

Sunday, January 9, 2011

What’s New with Open GL

Open GL capability has become a key part of the Avionics Ecosystem. As shown below the Eco system is always in flux. The maker of the Open GL capability shown in the drawing in this case is no longer exists as an independent entity. Open GL (Open Graphics Library) is the computer industry's standard application program interface (API) for defining 2-D and 3-D graphic images. Prior to OpenGL, any company developing a graphical application typically had to rewrite the graphics part of it for each operating system platform and had to be cognizant of the graphics hardware as well. With OpenGL, an application can create the same effects  for safety-critical avionics display applications For some excellent information on this topic see: http://www.opengles-book.com/




Saturday, January 8, 2011

Chips N Salsa in the New Millennium

No we are not talking about a trip to a Tex-Mex restaurant but rather how the cloud driven world will compute going forward.  Several years ago Tom Engebous of Texas Instruments was attributed to have said it’s “hardware that gets you to the table but software that seals the deal”. It was during this era that Texas Instruments was wrapping various software tools into their developer community through the acquisition of groups who had compilers, real time operating environments, mobile computing tools and my favorite area debugging capabilities through DSP-Bios. Now realized in the community as SYS-BIOS and best described by visiting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DSP/BIOS Whether Mr. Engebous   said this or not can be debated; but what can’t be debated is the validity of the premise. Before we start to review that topic let us first scan the waterfront of interesting chips available today for incorporation into the cloud driven connected computing model of tomorrow.  In reviewing these silicon providers it is an observation by me that it’s very hard to differentiate the value proposition of one microcontroller from the other. I see the main players in this world to be Renesas, http://www.resesas.eu/ ,   Atmel, http://www.atmel.com/ , Freescale, http://www.freescale.com, Texas Instruments, http://www.ti.com/ Actel/ Microsemi,  http://www.actel.com/  What will the user community use as a set of metrics to choose who to go with a design around? In the past it might have been service, support, price and free lunches from the sales team.  The web and cost constraints have put this paradigm into the “Mad Man” era. Here is how I see each players strengths and who I would use for various application scenarios
See: rowebots.blogspot.com  for some great information on the chipset’s listed above

Chips N Salsa in the New Millennium

No we are not talking about a trip to a Tex-Mex restaurant but rather how the cloud driven world will compute going forward.  Several years ago Tom Engebous of Texas Instruments was attributed to have said it’s “hardware that gets you to the table but software that seals the deal”. It was during this era that Texas Instruments was wrapping various software tools into their developer community through the acquisition of groups who had compilers, real time operating environments, mobile computing tools and my favorite area debugging capabilities through DSP-Bios. Now realized in the community as SYS-BIOS and best described by visiting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DSP/BIOS Whether Mr. Engebous   said this or not can be debated; but what can’t be debated is the validity of the premise. Before we start to review that topic let us first scan the waterfront of interesting chips available today for incorporation into the cloud driven connected computing model of tomorrow.  In reviewing these silicon providers it is an observation by me that it’s very hard to differentiate the value proposition of one microcontroller from the other. I see the main players in this world to be Renesas, http://www.resesas.eu/ ,   Atmel, http://www.atmel.com/ , Freescale, http://www.freescale.com, Texas Instruments, http://www.ti.com/ Actel/ Microsemi,  http://www.actel.com/  What will the user community use as a set of metrics to choose who to go with a design around? In the past it might have been service, support, price and free lunches from the sales team.  The web and cost constraints have put this paradigm into the “Mad Man” era. Here is how I see each players strengths and who I would use for various application scenarios.
  
 
See: rowebots.blogspot.com  for some great information on the chipset’s listed above

Thursday, January 6, 2011

All Manufactuers's Reps Don't Drive Green Cars

Over my career in high technology sales I've dealt with hundreds of rep groups. I've hired them , trained them ,closed deals and  fired them. The groups have come in all sizes from one person shows to teams
with adminsitrative assistant's,order entry and technical support. I always appreciated the rep that understood the inner workings of the customer's purchasing department and could set up calls on the fly  The annoying habit at the end of the call the rep showing their "line" card drove me crazy more than once. Overall working with this kind of force multiplier was a blessing and produced incredible results. Having a good rep is a  huge game changer for technology companies wanting to get their brand known and designed in. With the pervasive internet today though the rep has to be more then just a human transmitter of information. This means having a group just to pass out data sheets really isn't going to work. The customers today can get that
type of information and much more from the net. Today's reps need to be solution solvers. They have to be able to listen to a customers need and be able to configure a system that will solve that requirement. That means today's rep needs to be really an applications oriented person. One such group I've found that fits this description is Balanced  Dynamics. A group dedicated to truly understanding the client's problem and then drawing on an extensive background on imaging,graphics,video and embedded computing being able to offer cost effective solutions. Ms. Burford's team  not only acts to solve the problem through suggested configurations but stays with the customer through systems design and deployment. This approach really assits the program manager. You can contact this Southern California based group at:
Debie M. Burford
Balanced Dynamics Computing LLC
760 294 7538 office
 http://www.balanceddynamics.com/

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

CSPI RTS-860: Industry’s First Integrated Embedded Multiprocessing Environment

The CSPI RTS-860 was the embedded industry’s first  real time multiprocessing environment. CSPI, http://www.cspi.com/support/itsd26es.htm, a Billerica, Ma.based DSP manufacturer launched the product concept in the mid 1990’s. At that time the DSP market was in a transition having moved from box array processors that were attached to minicomputers to plug in Intel i860 boards. Various DSP comings sported these designs but CSPI reached the market first with the SuperCard. The CSPI SuperCard came in configurations contained either one, two, three or four i860’s.  We were having great success selling individual SuperCards but even with adding of software the ASP was in the low to mid teens. We needed a way to get a certain percentage of sales to at least equal or exceed the amount we were getting for the last phases of the box DSP sales. It was decided we would attempt to reach a different class of customer and target the systems market as a companion to our board business. Thus the concept of the RTS-860 was developed using a combination of modular software packages from Multiprocessor Toolsmiths Inc,   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unison_Operating_System and Software Components Group Inc to accomplish the programming and interactive debugging. The RTS-860 offered supercomputer-range performance by combining multiple SuperCard VME boards. These cards contained multiple Intel i860 processors and were housed in a chassis managed by a Motorola MVME167 host. This system runs an environment that consists of SCGI's pSOS+ real-time kernel and Toolsmith’s Unison operating system. The pSOS+ component provided the underlying multitasking and multiprocessing services and capabilities while Unison contributed UNIX-compatible file and network access system calls as well as remote procedure calls. This system was ahead of it’s time in that it allowed for other boards besides the CPU and SuperCards to be integrated into the system for tasks specific to the application. This heterogeneous environment was aided by software tools from Toolsmith’s that automated the development of applications. We sold systems to many of the major DOD primes for all types of applications in sonar, radar, data acquistion, sensor fusion and image processing. . A typical system sale was in the 120K-140K range. The largest sale was to a sonar application being done by the University of Texas Austin’s Navy Applied Research Lab. The lab purchased multiple RTS-860 with a complete Toolsmiths package and then integrated other boards for data acquisition and display. It would be interesting to see where the applications developed in this environment migrated to and under what type of paradigm they are operating in today.

Desert Blossoms

I’ve always liked the desert. The colors and terrain remind me of my favorite film venue: The American Western. Having grown up in the era of the TV Western I recall every night being exposed to a different hero: Gunsmoke, Riverboat, Bonanza, Sugarfoot, Cheyenne , Wagon Train, Yancy Derringer, Maverick, Wanted Dead or Alive, and my favorite Paladin all taught me sales strategies and human interaction skills. I was glad that my selling territory included New Mexico because I could not only call on the national labs at Sandia and Los Alamos but in conjunction with business get to see some great scenery and experience a great western adventure . Two of my favorite applications came out of the labs work in image processing and their charter within the DOE to protect and safeguard the nation’s nuclear stockpile.  One from Los Alamos dealt with developing a networked image processing system that would tie in satellite data, GIS overlays and live video. Truly ahead of its time the goal of this system was to plan the missions and monitoring of nuclear cargo around the country on the nation’s highways.  I was working of Gould’s Image & Graphics Division at the time and was thrilled to be contributing to this effort. I was even more enthralled several years after having participated in the effort when I became aware of a fantastic publication dealing with a morph of this topic. The book The White Train by Larry Purcell deals with the movement of nuclear stores via obviously a train. While on the Los Alamos project it was never discussed that anything but interstate travel would be planned and tracked; however it’s logical to consider the government would keep every option open. The system as designed could have certainly handled that type of contingency. The second application from Sandia labs also had a tie into possible shipments of nuclear materials in that it dealt with provide vision systems for autonomous vehicles. I was with Vicom Imaging at the time and sold the lab several systems that when combined with laser range finders allowed a small unmanned vehicle to navigate. We refined our pattern recognition skills and using edge detection routines able to navigate on roads using the side of the road on the left and the right as “markers” to steer from. One can only imagine how an autonomous capability could be brought into a nuclear cargo transfer scenario. So if you would like the combination of a western theme with a mystery and now timely commentary on current events go get a copy of this novel and enjoy!

Lee J. Nelson: Embedded Systems Industry Expert Remembered

I met Lee Nelson in the mid 1980’s when we were both working at Gould DeAnza selling image processing systems. At that time every lab doing any type of real research had to get an image processing system to add to their collection. Just as a few years before the research community stocked up on mini computers and array processors groups in the mid 80’s saw image processing as a status item. Companies such as Pixar, Vicom, Grinnell, Recognition Concepts, 3M/Comtal, Spatial Data Systems, Ramtek, and MegaVision among others were supplying these massive and expensive systems into a variety of research applications. With the exception of the medical imaging market, oil exploration and the printing industry it seemed there were no real OEM opportunities. Who could complain though when the ASP was 100 K and Real Time Video Disks went for 40 K.   Lee and I were sales managers working opposite ends of the country. He was focusing on the D.C. Metro and government markets while I handled the west coast aerospace and southwest oil business. I was always impressed with Lee’s overall solutions oriented sales approach. In the days before the internet customers depended on salespersons who knew how to solve applications and suggest the correct configuration including cameras, data acquisition and storage devices. I know Lee was well liked by his customer community and peers.  Who could have predicted that in less then five years customers would be ditching their basketball court sized labs full of technology that was bigger then a small refrigerator and replacing it with microwave sized workstations containing plug in “trick” cards that did all the things the big boxes did for a quarter of the price. Lee must have been clairvoyant in seeing the change coming and left the corporate sales game to focus on a successful consulting and writing practice. You may have read some of his thoughtful articles concerning various image processing application areas in publications such as this journal: http://www.advancedimagingpro.com/publication/bio.jsp?id=6 . Having been a long time gastro intestinal patient I especially enjoyed a recent article covering Advances in Endoscopy using small micro sensors that can then be disposed after the procedure. Some great artwork on this type of application can be seen at. Here’s hoping Mr. Nelson continues to publish articles relevant to the changing times in image processing as we move from the expensive lab based systems of the 80’s through the ho hum workstation era of the 90’s to perhaps a golden era of truly human helpful deployed imaging applications that will improve daily well being and perhaps reduce some of the price pressures we are all feeling.  Lastly find a cool and timely discussion of alternative power and area that will be addressed in depth on this blog because it is now more than ever a national security concern.

Saturday, January 1, 2011

It’s Not Your Father’s Government Contracting Environment

In a few days it will be the 50th anniversary of the January 17, 1961 speech given by President Dwight D. Eisenhower when he warned us of the nations drift toward the vast reaching business environment of the Military–industrial complex. This fascinating and profound message from the leader of the Allied Forces in Europe was specific and very
accurate.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military%E2%80%93industrial_complex  . I grew up in the era that leveraged this paradigm into putting a man on the moon and bringing down the iron curtain. The 1980’s brought us the world of COTS and ongoing reforms in contracting rules. As we enter the second decade of the new millennium we are facing a vastly changed government contracting world. If you are going to be a player in this new world and survive I suggest you understand how to leverage the GovWin ecosystem.
http://govwin.com/user/register/acl-redirect   Don’t forget to take advantage of listing your group’s capability in the appropriate section.  See my reading list and Amazon suggestions for great reading on real time systems design.