»Trust, expertise and collaboration«

In addition to its tools for embedded software development, Tasking placed the company's new brand identity at the centre of its trade fair presence at embedded world this year. Christoph Herzog, CTO of Tasking, explains the background and gives an outlook for the future.

Elektronik automotive: Tasking presents itself with a new logo, a new website and a new positioning overall. What‘s the story here?
Christoph Herzog: Tasking has long been known as a leading provider of compiler solutions. With the acquisition of iSystem two and a half years ago, we have expanded our offering to include debuggers and related products. It is time to highlight and communicate this one-stop offering more clearly.

Elektronik automotive: A rebranding should also make the company‘s values more visible. What keywords would you use to describe Tasking in this respect?
Christoph Herzog: We believe that trust, expertise, and collaboration are the foundation for creating great products. I think trust and motivation are more important than expertise – expertise you can learn if you have a certain level of know-how. But motivation and passion are much harder to learn – maybe impossible.

Collaboration is essential for us as a company. It is important for us not only to maintain the internal relationship between our products to lift the cross-product potential, but also to cooperate with partners like Infineon or Vector. That why I chose the trust 1st – expertise 2nd – collaboration 3rd.

Elektronik automotive: What distinguishes Tasking‘s portfolio, and what sets you apart from your competitors?
Christoph Herzog: By providing developers with reliable and user-friendly tools, we not only develop embedded technology, but also shape the future of embedded devices together with our customers.

As already mentioned, we provide tools for the entire field of embedded software development in the automotive sector. And especially with regard to functional safety and cybersecurity. We have certified compilers, libraries, debuggers and so on.

But we are not the ones who are bringing innovation into cars or other devices. We are a vehicle developers use to create good software for embedded devices. In the end, we are not visible when you buy an embedded device (a car or whatever).

Our value is that we produce products that are easy to understand (we are often not the daily bread and butter product for engineers), and we need to be reliable as we are safety-critical. Our customers save a lot of work, time, and money in software development with our products.

Elektronik automotive: To what extent is the integration of iSystem completed internally? What does this mean for customers in terms of sales and, above all, technical support?
Christoph Herzog: The integration of iSystem is complete. We have now also unified all customer interfaces and trained our entire sales team for both product lines. This also applies to all our FAEs. At the same time, there is now only one common support portal.

Elektronik automotive: What will the rebranding change in everyday life for existing and potential customers? What are the advantages of the new website in particular?
Above all, the rebranding reflects the company‘s new shared DNA, namely the seamless integration of all our products as a common development goal. This is reflected on the website by providing customers with a clear development workflow. This also makes the interaction between the products clear.

Elektronik automotive: Let‘s take a look into the future. What strategic decisions are on the horizon? What direction are you taking in the development of new products and features? What challenges do you see, particularly with regard to functional safety and cybersecurity?
Christoph Herzog: Functional safety will play an increasingly important role in the automotive system. This is further amplified by the increasing distribution of functions: there will always be ECUs that are distributed in the vehicle. Functional safety must be a focus for each and every one of them, especially when developing the software.

Elektronik automotive: AI is also playing an increasingly important role in the automotive industry. How is Tasking positioned here, and what is planned for the future?
Christoph Herzog: Tasking is the only company to offer a self-developed solution for the new Infineon TC4. This also includes the embedded AI processor from Infineon. This embedded AI processor (the so-called PPU) is supported by Tasking with its own compiler and embedded software.

Elektronik automotive: RISC-V has also been a major topic in recent months. How do you see the importance of this standard and how is Tasking, as a compiler and debugger specialist, prepared for it? How will the industry continue to develop?
Christoph Herzog: This is obvious to us at Tasking: it has to go full steam ahead! We are working intensively on an advanced solution for RISC-V, especially in the automotive sector. This means that the solution will be certified for use in safety and security-critical areas and will of course also be performance-optimized. We are working closely with our partners such as Quintauris and Infineon.

Elektronik automotive: The (regulatory) requirements are also increasing in other areas, such as medical technology or safety-critical industries. Do you also see a market for Tasking products here?
Christoph Herzog: Definitely. Although the automotive sector is our core business, our products also meet customer requirements in other markets and are popular there.