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NetSilicon gains on Red Hat deal

NetSilicon, Inc. (Nasdaq: NSIL) rose 15 percent Wednesday after announcing a partnership with Red Hat, Inc. (Nasdaq: RHAT).

Shares in NetSilicon, which makes and cards for networked devices, were up or 3.5 to 27.5. Shares in Linux and open source software and service provider Red Hat fell 0.75 to 20.25.

The companies have partnered to develop open source products and services for makers of Ethernet and Internet-attached devices. Under the terms of the deal, Red Hat will provide engineering services to NetSilicon and support to NetSilicon customers. The first product from the partnership is NET+Lx, a development platform for Internet Appliances, running uClinux, which was ported by Red Hat to NetSilicon's NET+ARM processor.

"The next wave of computing is happening at the device level. With the availability of tightly-coupled software and silicon solutions, the intelligent device market will soon dwarf the desktop and server markets in annual units shipped," said NetSilicon CEO Cornelius "Pete" Peterson in a statement.

IDC predicts that, by 2002, there will be more than 55 million handheld and notebook-style information appliance devices and that by 2005, shipments of will exceed those for PCs.