… and NI adds state machine modelling tool

Statecharts are commonly used to design state machines to model the behaviour of real-time and embedded systems to depict event occurrences and responses for digital communication protocols, machine controllers and system-protection applications. LabVIEW 8.5 adds a new statechart module to help engineers and scientists design and simulate these event-based systems using familiar, high-level statechart notations based on the Unified Modeling Language (UML) standard.
Because the LabVIEW Statechart Module is based on the LabVIEW graphical programming language, engineers and scientists have a single platform to design, prototype and deploy their systems quickly, combining familiar statechart notation with real-world I/O running on deterministic real-time or
FPGA-based systems.

While this is not a move into full blown requirements capture and system modelling, it is a response to the recent acquisition of embedded UML tool provider Telelogic by IBM Rational. IBM is more focussed on the system and web software development, rather than embedded, and NI expects to pick up customers who used the I-logix state machine tool that was bought by Telelogic and so is now part of IBM Rational.