Although Microsoft Corp. has kept alternative operating system makers at bay on the desktop, it is an underdog in the battle over the operating systems in non-PC computing devices.

On Wednesday, the software maker will beef up its arsenal, releasing at its Embedded Developers Conference in Las Vegas a version of its Windows XP operating system that has been retooled to run inside embedded devices.

Chip makers predict that microprocessors will soon creep into nearly every appliance, from refrigerators to car dashboards, and almost all of those chips will have an embedded operating system. But while cell phones get smarter and computers get thinner, Windows has found itself a small player in a growing industry. Users of everything from handheld computers to small communication devices are finding themselves turning to operating systems other than Windows.

Devices running the Linux operating system tend to cost less, analysts say, because the open-source operating system is distributed free of royalties. It also comes with a large pool of open-source developers that some programmers say comes in handy when developing with and debugging the operating system.

Other options, such as proprietary systems developed by Wind River Systems Inc., are widely used because they are considered "hard real-time" systems, operating systems that are fault tolerant and can process commands immediately. For example, a medical device requires a hard real-time system because it must be highly reliable and fast.

"Reliability becomes a really big issue in many cases," said Daya Nadamuni, an embedded systems analyst with Gartner Inc.'s Dataquest unit. "In certain systems, you could not afford to have a soft real-time operating system; you could not afford to have an operating system that crashes, because obviously that would be life threatening."

Neither Windows nor Linux can be used for those applications because they are not fast or reliable enough, Nadamuni said.

Microsoft plans to release its first real-time operating system, Windows CE .Net, some time next month. However, some competitors say it lacks the speed necessary to run critical computing devices such as medical equipment.

Where Microsoft is seen to have an advantage over its competitors is in the development space. Programmers can use Microsoft's popular Visual Studio.Net software suite to build applications for embedded Windows systems, according to Megan Kidd, a product manager with Microsoft's embedded group.

"It's all a question of familiarity with the developer environment," Nadamuni said. "Users need to make sure there is a good tool chain to support the system."

Currently, about 40 percent of the embedded operating systems used in devices are custom-designed by the hardware makers, according to research from Dataquest. Consumer electronics makers such as Sony Corp. and Nintendo of America Inc. have built custom systems. However, with new offerings from Microsoft as well as other competing software, many hardware makers are turning to off-the-shelf operating systems rather than employing an army of programmers to build one from scratch.

After custom-built systems, 18-year-old Wind River Systems holds the largest share of the market. Its embedded operating system and developer tools are used in 31 percent

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