Same, I left in 2014. I left after a couple of years to almost double my pay and not work on a Linux RT USB driver directly out of college for which I had no desire to be a SME, but in hindsight I think the coworkers I had there were smarter than anywhere else I've worked since (including Google). They paid absolutely nothing but seemed to have good culture, at least where I was at the time.
I suppose it's fair to describe both as niche, even though basically every facility that requires high reliability controls (talking chemicals, energy, medical, etc) uses Emerson. They're enormous, but they do focus on one kind of thing.
It happens to also be what NI does (did) except NI did it in a way that was more accessible to education and hobbyists. Still expensive, but with things like educational toolkits using LabView as a base they have products that address the market for lower cost, lower reliability, but more flexible prototyping tools that I've never seen Emerson focus on at all.
But yeah, I knew about this a year ago because it's the kind of thing that matters a lot for my work. And since then I've known to not build any new prototypes that use NI software and instead move towards anything else...
> And since then I've known to not build any new software that uses NI software[sic] and instead move towards anything else...
Do you mean "not to build any new software that uses NI hardware", or are you specifically averse to Emerson's software dev practices even though you trust them to produce good hardware?
On that note, who is your new preferred vendor for DAQ hardware? Some of the stuff that NI allowed you to build with cRIO or PC-based multifunction DAQ hardware like their PCIe-6321 etc. was pretty unique. There's not a lot of off-the-shelf gear for on the order of $1000 that can do 100 kHz digital/analog signal acquisition.
I like Delta Tau PMAC gear for electronic servo control (though their recent acquisition by Omron seems to be having a similar impact as I expect Emerson is having at NI) and Delta Motion for hydraulics (not yet bought out by anyone, they seem to successfully transition to employee-owned after Natchwey retired last year, but time will tell)... but neither is a true multifunction DAQ system like NI.
I must have missed this when it happened last year (April apparently). Perhaps not surprisingly I associate the name "Emerson" with comically large integrated stereos (boom boxes). But apparently they are building up a test and measurement group.
I am aware, and it is unfortunate for Emerson Electric in terms of branding things in the electronics space. I don't doubt they will retain the National Instruments and/or Digilent brands for that reason.
It will make me chuckle every time I see that Digilent banner "An Emerson company."
They were bought by a private equity company in 2021. Would love to know more about the Berlin programming scene in the 90s. The initial minds behind Generator/Reaktor were incredibly inspiring.
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Why do you think that is?
so annoying!
* One project where the CI took something like 48 hours
* Trying to apply waterfall hardware engineering processes to software development
* Mostly hiring devs fresh from university so there was a ton of group think due to a lack of new ideas
* Low salaries so most of the devs left once they got promoted beyond a junior level
NI = No Income. Keep in mind, they're also HQ'd in Austin, TX, which is essentially the most expensive city in Texas.
It happens to also be what NI does (did) except NI did it in a way that was more accessible to education and hobbyists. Still expensive, but with things like educational toolkits using LabView as a base they have products that address the market for lower cost, lower reliability, but more flexible prototyping tools that I've never seen Emerson focus on at all.
But yeah, I knew about this a year ago because it's the kind of thing that matters a lot for my work. And since then I've known to not build any new prototypes that use NI software and instead move towards anything else...
Do you mean "not to build any new software that uses NI hardware", or are you specifically averse to Emerson's software dev practices even though you trust them to produce good hardware?
On that note, who is your new preferred vendor for DAQ hardware? Some of the stuff that NI allowed you to build with cRIO or PC-based multifunction DAQ hardware like their PCIe-6321 etc. was pretty unique. There's not a lot of off-the-shelf gear for on the order of $1000 that can do 100 kHz digital/analog signal acquisition.
I like Delta Tau PMAC gear for electronic servo control (though their recent acquisition by Omron seems to be having a similar impact as I expect Emerson is having at NI) and Delta Motion for hydraulics (not yet bought out by anyone, they seem to successfully transition to employee-owned after Natchwey retired last year, but time will tell)... but neither is a true multifunction DAQ system like NI.
It will make me chuckle every time I see that Digilent banner "An Emerson company."
Deleted Comment
See ti.com - Texas Instruments
Indeed. There's also this one letter dot-com with 500 million MAU: x.com.
I wonder what took so long to rekt themselves into an acquisition after Dr. T retired.