Make labview everywhere a reality

[falkpl]

I have used labview for a long time and avid user.  One issue I have been hitting lately is the "LabVIEW everywhere" slogan never really panned out, it has become LabVIEW everywhere NI allows it to be.  I am getting jealous of the Arduino and Rasberry Pi and hundreds of PICS and ARMs not avaliable to me (Yes I have the pro liscence but not embedded).  I wish Labview pro opened up the toolchain and started porting to many other platforms by default.  I am seeing jobs that labview is loosing ot to where it should be much more competetive like the embedded market. 

Essentially I am looking to see the Labview development environment easily work with toolchains for the most popular processors and also open up a simple standard to add targets to projects. 

Wouldnt it be nice to program a $25 ardunio dirrectly from labview (NO THIS IS NOT WHAT THE TOOLKIT IS DOING).  Add a Ardunio target file (maps the io memory to variables and throw down a loop, boolean shift register, a wait and a digital line variable, download to the micro and the blink led example is done.  Really open up the doors for LabVIEW everywhere.

[vitoi]

RavensFan,

When you put your career and reputation into the hands of a single company, that company's financial performance is crucial. This is particularly so when you see certain paradigm shift initiatives such as LabVIEW Everywhere being shelved for short term gains and you observe a share price continually declining relative to that company’s peers.

I've invested a lot in LabVIEW and as part of my career risk management need to monitor that investment. Part of my mitigation has been to develop C embedded programming skills to supplement my LabVIEW and other skills. I can now comfortably perform many of the data acquisition, signal processing, motor control, user interface, data communication  tasks I need using Texas Instrument's TM4C129 LaunchPad, which is a great board with plenty of I/O, USB, Ethernet, I2C, UARTS, etc for just $20. Would have liked to also be able to do my programming in LabVIEW, but that door has been closed on me.

I feel much more comfortable now that I am less dependent on a single company and no longer beholden to their marketing strategy. The career risks were just too high.

I've been closely tracking the National Instruments share price since the beginning of 2012, which was when I purchased and evaluated LabVIEW Embedded for ARM. I provide a brief report just after each calendar year. Hopefully you, and others in the LabVIEW community, will find it interesting and pertinent. Feel free not to read the yearly posts if you don't want to.

Look out for my next report early 2015.

Regards,

Vito

[Intaris]

This is particularly so when you see certain paradigm shift initiatives such as LabVIEW Everywhere being shelved for short term gains and you observe a share price continually declining relative to that company’s peers

But aren't short-term gains exactly this thing investors are interested in?  Isn't that exactly the kind of thing which might keep the share price up (artificially)?

I fail to see a coherent correlation between what you are presenting as data and what you are moaning about.  The remedy for falling stock prices are (in todays world unfortunately) a series of short-term gains because most shareholders are short-term shareholders.  Companies which invest in the long term tend to have periods of stagnant share price (or as you have pointed out share prices which fall relative to the important indices).

How you want to complain about the lack of support for "LabVIEW everywhere" (which is most certainly a long-term operation) while simultansously complaining about the falling stock price seems disjointed to me.

A lot of R&D in LabVIEW is currently being invested in setting the stage for another two decades of growth on the software side.  We are currently in the "This is consuming a lot of our resources" stage.  Eventually NI will get to the "Wow this was easy, good job we spent that time refactoring all that old code away" point, but that's still a few years away.

So which is your concern exactly, falling stock price of long-term strategy?

[vitoi]

Share price is the ultimate score card. Investors put their money where their thoughts are. Investors look at the long term prospects of a company. It's even possible to have a high price/earnings ratio purely because a company is seen as a growth company.

The only people that look at the short term are some executives with share options that what to maximize their return now.

Intaris, I certainly hope National Instruments are invested in setting the stage for another two decades of growth. I look forward to the "Wow this was easy, good job we spent that time refactoring all that old code away". I'm patient and will wait indefinitely while diversifying my skills. When the wow comes, I'll adjust my solution mix accordingly. But I will want to see the evidence before I make the move. There's been very little wow in the last few years of LabVIEW updates.

Believe me, the stock market, in the long term, is very good at assessing a company's prospects.

[Intaris]

Investors look at the long term prospects of a company

This is simply not true.  The majority of share holders are short to medium term investors.  In addition the share price is a notoriously bad indicator of future performance.  It's simply a "gut feeling" reaction to current press releases from the company involved.  Share price is at most an indication of whether analyst forecasts have been met or not.  Look at the share price of Agilent a few weeks either side of their quarterly reporting (I happen to be an Agilent share holder).  Course differences of signigicantly more than 10% are quite common.  Do you really think the future prospects of the company are changing in such a short period of time?  We bought shares when they were in the cellar (11 dollar) because WE knew the long term prospects of the company.  It only took the stock market 3 years to catch up with that knowledge.

Share price is simply an indicator of what people are willing to pay for a share at this moment in time.  This can be based on economic projections, expert analysis, psychic readings, tarot cards, random sunspot activity or whatever.  Hype tends to play a major role also.

So if by "in the long term" you mean looking back ten years and then applying 20/20 hindsight to the relative prospects of a company ten years ago than I'm in agreement with you.  Everything else is hocus pocus.

[vitoi]

Intaris, getting back to the main topic, do you think that LabVIEW Everywhere is a good thing? By "LabVIEW Everywhere", I mean the ability for LabVIEW to target not only PCs, but also microcontrollers (even just one modern type), tablet computers and mobile phones. By good I mean both from the perspective of the customer/developer and National Instruments. Also, do you think that such moves will increase LabVIEW sales?

[crossrulz]

We are not arguing about this being a good idea.  I gave this idea my vote a very long time ago.  I would love to be able to program a microcontroller with LabVIEW.  But at the same time, we have to remember that NI only has so many resources and they are busy working on stuff that I am very much looking forward to.  And as much as we LabVIEW programmers hate to admit it, NI is a hardware company.  Making LabVIEW being able to program an Arduino will not help NI sell hardware.

I'm not saying that I fully agree with what NI is doing.  I'm just stating reality and saying that I like what NI has coming down the pipe.  I'll just continue to poke and prod whenever I get the chance.

[Intaris]

I think in its current state there are other things I would much prefer to be done with LabVIEW.

IDE hangups, incorrect type propagation and all kinds of other day-to-day irritations I would love to see corrected before this kind of idea would even have a chance of generating a positive result.  Without a more stable and scaleable IDE behind the entire approach I would say NO, I don't think this is a good idea.  If NI DOES get the IDE into ship-shape then I might be swayed to switch to YES.

At the moment a move int his direction would cause so much grief and headache that it would be a disaster.

[vitoi]

The share price figures for the three years 2012, 2013 and 2014 are now available. Over the past three years:

* National Instruments: Up 19.81%

* Agilent: Up 63.83%

* Nasdaq: Up 81.80%

* Russell 2000: Up 62.60%

The relevant indices and Agilent are all up about 60 to 80%. National Instruments up only 19.81% over the three years (or down 34.10% relative to the Nasdaq).

Over the past three years, on average, the National Instruments share price has dropped about 1% per month relative to the Nasdaq. The trend continues almost unchanged over the past three years.

Imagine what LabVIEW everywhere would do to National Instruments share price (and our marketability/career prospects/capability).

[RavensFan]

Do you ever get tired of posting the same crap over and over again?

[Chris_Cilino]

RoboGret has responded to this concept in the context of LabVIEW supporting the Raspberry PI. I think you'll find the response helpful in understanding NI's strategy and recommendations. 

The url is : 

http://forums.ni.com/t5/ideas/v2/ideapage/blog-id/labviewideas/article-id/18685/page/5#comments