Linuxdevices.com has recently published an article titled: Let's call Embedded what it is -- a Service Industry (http://linuxdevices.com/articles/AT6989225710.html).  In this article, Curt Schacker discusses how little growth there has been in the Embedded Systems industry. He claims that most embedded companies are trying to establish themselves as product companies, when the market is really a services market.  Having worked for two Embedded companies in the past that went out of business, I think he is right.  I have often heard the argument that service companies are too much work, they don't scale, etc.  But, to me services has always been a more natural fit for myself and an embedded systems company -- one of the reasons BEC Systems exists.