Extras > White Paper > The Offering

So, basically, you are offering some kind of programmable embedded solution!

This is exactly right! We do not call our programmable devices "serial device servers" because this wouldn't do them justice. Calling them "programmable controllers" would be more appropriate.

But isn't this a step back? Haven't you positioned your original products as a no-programming-needed alternative to the hard labor of changing or writing embedded firmware?

It's a step forward, not back! What it does, it adds flexibility, but it is your choice whether you want to use it or not.

Some of our programmable devices come with a "default" application — written in BASIC — which implements the exact functionality of our "fixed" network-to-serial devices. This way, if you just want a simple converter, you don't have to write any code. At the same time, the moment you want to change or add something, you will have all the tools to easily — and I stress the word "easily" — do this.

Well, one still might argue that a well-designed product contains all the options you'll ever need.

Really? Have you tried? No matter how many user-selectable options you provide, there are always requests for more! This is not surprising, as all systems and projects are different... no matter how hard you try to provide all options you can't cover everything, plus you end up with a product which has so many adjustable settings that many users can't figure out how to setup your device correctly.

In this regard, being able to quickly write a simple BASIC program that is tailored to a particular application or Customer may be a much more elegant solution.

OK, OK. Let's look at this from another angle. Offering embedded programmability means pitting yourself against a large number of incumbent embedded software vendors. There are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of embedded solutions. How do you expect to beat this competition?

Yes, at first glance, the embedded programming industry appears to be a very competitive market. You have microcontroller and CPU manufacturers that also offer development tools, independent software vendors supplying sophisticated operating systems, compilers, etc. At the same time, we can argue, that with all this abundance, there is something missing!

And what would that be?

We observe a notable absence of easy-to-use systems and tools. Just think about what it takes to start developing an embedded system. Typically, you need a knowledge of C, better with some understanding of assembler-level programming. You need tools — a compiler, a linker, etc. Most of the time you need an In-Circuit Emulator (ICE) for debugging. On top of this you need to spend time understanding libraries that vendor supplied. All this costs you money, sometimes lots of it, but more importantly, it takes a lot of time. You could easily log several months of work before you even start working on an actual project.

Now, with Tibbo, it is completely different. Just get one of our devices, install our PC software called Tibbo Integrated Development Environment (TIDE) and you can start creating your software. Write your program in BASIC — which is, incidentally, a very popular and well-understood language — and debug it right from TIDE. You don't need to buy an expensive ICE machine — just get one of our devices! The debugging process is seamless, and is one of our strongest points, in my view. You totally forget that the program you are debugging actually runs on a Tibbo device, not your PC!