It is quite common to read white papers from vendors that purport to provide unbiased information. It’s much rarer to find one that actually provides that information without attaching a commercial message to it. I ran across one on the WindowsforDevices.com site that does just that. This paper from Datalight provides a clear, concise summary of the differences between NOR and NAND flash memory that provides useful information to embedded systems designers.

As I said, this type of information is rare. I recently reviewed abstracts submitted to the Embedded Systems Conference, so an example of a non-marketing message is a welcome relief. It’s amazing how many companies think that that conference has it in for them because their papers get rejected time after time. The truth is that most of these are such bald advertorials that it’s almost funny. Granted, many technical conferences accept such papers readily, but it’s nice to be associated with a group of people that still thinks providing good information instead of a thinly-veiled commercial is important.

I have to wonder if people realize this. When you attend conferences and see marketing slides instead of hard information does it bother you?

Larry Mittag