Red Hat boards the Bluetooth ship
By Sam Williams
August 02, 2000
Less than a week after IBM's (IBM) attempt to lure Linux developers to
the Viking-themed Bluetooth wireless communications project, leading
Linux vendor Red Hat (RHAT) and Ericsson Mobile
Communications (ERICY) have announced plans to recruit their own
open source raiding party.
According to a Wednesday announcement, the companies have unveiled a
"strategic initiative" to develop a broad range of software products and
services for the wireless home communications market. Although such a
market does not yet exist -- at least for Bluetooth products -- Ericsson, one
of Bluetooth's biggest backers, already plans to use the Red Hat Linux
kernel as a base operating system for its cordless screen phone, a
prototype wireless "Web pad" scheduled for rollout later this year.
The deal is interesting in one respect: It formalizes Red Hat's desire to use
Red Hat Linux as a base platform for embedded Linux development.
Officially, the company has yet to come out with a separate embedded
version of its popular Red Hat enterprise distribution, preferring to guard its
own real-time embedded operating system EL/IX, acquired during last
fall's merger with Cygnus Systems.
Given the kernel's free software license, however, Ericsson developers
merely took it upon themselves to use the kernel to develop a cheap
prototype device. Ericsson unveiled that prototype at the German trade
show CeBit in February, using the Opera browser as a Web interface.
Hoping to create a community
According to Kim Knuttila, Red Hat vice president and general manager
of client services, the partnership is both an attempt to support Ericsson's
existing efforts as well as encourage other software developers to do the
same.
For the moment, Red Hat is holding off on creating a standard version of
Red Hat Linux specifically for the embedded Linux market. By offering
service and support, however, the company would allow outside vendors to
customize the existing Red Hat kernel. Both Ericsson and Red Hat plan to
create a central developer website in the hopes of creating a development
community around the Ericsson product line.
"It's more about creating a relationship for building the software for a
family of products rather than building a distribution for one target
product," Knuttila says. "Our current path is that for each for these
devices, you're not likely to use a completely standard product anyway.
Whatever standard distribution you use would just be the starting point for
further development."
Instead of supplying a single distribution of Linux, Knuttila said, Red Hat
would be supplying the software tools and development expertise acquired
during the Cygnus merger.
Protecting Cygnus
Cygnus, a private company that specialized in the development of free
software tools for the embedded systems market, was one of the first
commercial companies, if not the first, to embrace the Gnu General Public
License and use it as a base for profitable growth. Since the acquisition,
Cygnus founder Michael Tiemann has become Red Hat's chief technology
officer, and the Durham, N.C.-based company has been overly careful not
to tamper with the Cygnus business model while positioning itself in the
fast-growing embedded appliance market.
"You can look at this announcement from two perspectives," says Knuttila.
"It's the first announcement of a high-level relationship between Red Hat
and Ericsson. It's also the first example of how the merger between Red
Hat, with its kernel and service experience, and Cygnus, with its tools and
development experience, is producing interesting results."
Don't wait, consolidate
LynuxWorks put some of its pre-IPO dollars to work this week, buying
up a smaller embedded Linux vendor Integrated Software &
Development Corp. in an effort to fill out their technology offerings.
ISDCorp., developer of Royal Linux, specializes in the development of
both the Linux and VxWorks embedded operating systems on the ARM
and MIPS processor platforms. The company has about 50 employees
compared with 200 for LynuxWorks.
For LynuxWorks president Inder Singh, a man who has been guiding his
company deeper and deeper into the embedded Linux market over the last
12 months, the merger offers his company access to a corner of the Linux
market previously unavailable to it.
"The companies are amazingly complementary," says Singh. "We've been
working more with developers of the final embedded equipment, whereas
they've been working more with the processor companies and their
licensees. The synergy between the two companies is strong."
Added Singh with a slight laugh, "Of course, being in Silicon Valley, getting
another 40 engineers takes a long time, so that's nice, too."
Indeed, since the beginning of the year, embedded Linux players such as
Lineo, LynuxWorks and MontaVista have been in a three-way race to
scoop up the best talent, often resorting to outright acquisition to get the job
done.
Singh says it's all about momentum.
"We started this company 10 years ago in the hopes of bringing Unix open
standards to the embedded marketplace," he says. "Unix fragmented, of
course, but with processors becoming more powerful and companies
putting more focus on the software development side, it's all coming back
in the form of Linux with a vengeance."
As a symbol of that momentum shift, LynuxWorks changed its name in
May from Lynx Real-Time Systems. Until last November, the company
focused primarily on LynxOS, a Unix-like real-time operating system.
Hoping to catch the demand growth for Linux, Lynx rolled out Blue Cat
Linux. In June the company became the recipient of a $35 million venture
funding round, following closely on the heels of rival firm Lineo Inc.,
distributors of Emedix Linux.
Despite the speedy turnaround, Singh says his company will have to move
even faster if it wants to keep up with the embedded systems market.
"The Internet and processor power are driving the market like it's never
been driven before," says Singh. "With embedded systems, it used to be
one or two hardware guys writing some firmware to go into a processor.
Now, even for products in the $100 range, we have customers that have
over 100 software engineers developing the software. Linux is fueling that
phenomenon, because it lets companies shift more money away from
paying licensing fees to paying developer's salaries. It also helps them get
their products to market quicker." |
