Welcome to the jungle

摘要

"First to market" is the characteristic marketers are often implying when they mention a product's "time to market." So, why do they shroud this coveted title in imprecision? There can be only one first. But there are several ways to define your development effort as the first: It can be the first to demonstrate a concept, the first to bring a viable product to market, or the first in profitability or market share. "Time to market" implies that your design will be complete before your competitor's because your development effort will be shorter and less risky than if you chose other options. As a first-to-market developer, your design efforts in practice incur a unique set of risks by virtue of your trying to accomplish something in a way that no one has before you. If you are using precertified and preproduction components, you usually lack access to mature, targeted development tools; documentation; and training, because they are still being built and certified as you complete your design. Reference 1 is an EDN hands-on project that deals with some of the issues facing early adopters using pre-production technologies and products in pursuit of being first to market. Reader feedback from that article became the seed for investigating how you can improve your success when you are considering pre-production processors, components, and development-support resources for your next embedded project.