Economics of software update systems: Measuring the total cost of ownership for building and buying solutions

As teams decide if their problems are novel or commonplace, the decision to build the solution in-house or buy a professional solution enters the forefront. This is where the multiple stages of software update management enter, quitely determining organizational maturity at the intersection of practice and intention.

As devices become increasingly software-defined, managing them in the field requires more than delivering updates. In this Embedded World North America 2026 session, Luis Ramirez, Senior Customer Engineer at Northern.tech, explores the challenges of managing complex, distributed device fleets and the strategies organizations can use to securely maintain and update them throughout their operational lives.

Mender Customer Engineer Jana Perić shares lessons from real-world deployments on building secure and robust OTA software update infrastructure that holds up in the field.