montavista

Embedded Linux company boasts 1-second boot

The race to faster boot times is on.

MontaVista, an embedded Linux company based in Santa Clara, Calif., said Tuesday its latest system is able to boot in one second and released a video that shows a vehicle dashboard system going from cold boot into a "fully operational" state in that time.

The one-second timing may not be directly translatable to a desktop Linux OS environment, however, because booting a full-fledged OS requires additional drivers and processes to be launched.

Intel's Netbook Linux OS, Moblin, is also eyeing fast boot times. The chipmaker recently partnered with Phoenix … Read more

Mozilla, MontaVista, ARM, and others collaborate on a new/old device

I was surprised to see that a collection of seven companies - including Mozilla Corp., ARM, and MontaVista - are collaborating on a web-enabled mini-PC. Why surprised?

Because companies have been throwing money at similar ideas for the past decade, and always without success.

When I was at Mitsui Comtek in 1997, we built a similar device. A few years later at Lineo, we worked on something similar (though this time purely from the software angle).

Now MontaVista, a company with which I competed back in my Lineo days, is at it again, but this time hopes that greater openness can be the differentiator:… Read more

The mobile future is wide open

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--If you're not exactly sure what you want in a mobile computer, don't worry: the folks who are building them aren't entirely sure themselves.

The consensus among five panelists gathered here at the ARM Developers Conference was that this is a very interesting and confusing time to be thinking about the future of mobile computing, because the playing field is so wide open and because consumers haven't decided exactly what they want.

"It's sort of like Darwin," said Tony Milbourn, director of mobile devices at Motorola. "We don't … Read more

The Open Source CEO: Kelly Herrell, Vyatta (Part 7)

In this seventh installment of the Open Source CEO Series, I talked with Kelly Herrell, CEO of Vyatta, the open source network software company (router and firewall).

I first bumped into Kelly back in 1998 when my employer (Mitsui Comtek, the high-tech subsidiary of Mitsui & Co.) invested in Cobalt Microsystems (Linux microserver company acquired by Sun for $2.1 billion). I bumped into him again years later when he was running operations and strategy for Monta Vista, an embedded Linux pioneer.

Kelly is one of those people that you respect even when he's kicking your tail (as was the case at Monta Vista - I was at rival Lineo). Once known for being "the world's best-dressed Linux backer" [Correction: I inadvertently linked to an article on Peder Ulander, who dresses much better than Kelly, though I do have to say the first time I met Kelly he was wearing a green shirt and matching green shoes :-) ], Kelly's reputation is now right where it should be: a tier-one open source executive.… Read more

MontaVista buys two Linux firms

MontaVista Software has acquired a business partner and another company, both of which, like MontaVista itself, focus on Linux for embedded computing devices such as slot machines and mobile phones.

The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company said Tuesday that it has fully acquired joint venture MontaVista Limited and also has absorbed Liberte Software, a Linux design services company that had worked closely with MontaVista Ltd.

The acquisition of the two U.K.-based endeavors will bolster MontaVista's sales and services staff, the company said.

"The growth in the embedded Linux market in Europe is phenomenal, and MontaVista Software … Read more