For PC manufacturers, this means the time available to get a return on their product development investment is very short. This often leads to a divergence within the market between those who want the technology and those who can deliver it. In fact, the TTM pressure for Internet device manufacturers is two to three times that of PC manufacturers. Second, electronic products are becoming increasingly complex, and target markets are becoming more fragmented, increasing the need for tailored products and greater customization. Adding to this problem is the widespread industry shortage of software resources.
Talented developers are expensive.
Today, in the United States and Europe especially, the demand for software developers far exceeds the available supply. A partial solution to the problem may lie in the growing popularity of open source software communities. These online resources provide manufacturers with exciting opportunities to tap into large reservoirs of software design resources. However, Linux programmers are fragmented into thousands of separate user communities. Unfortunately, electronic product manufacturers have neither the time nor the money to gain access to all of the Linux communities.