MontaVista Software today announced the release of version 4.0 of its
embedded Linux OS, MontaVista Linux Professional Edition Pro. The new
release is based on the 2.6 Linux kernel and includes hard real-time
capabilities.
MontaVista is aiming to take share from its embedded
rivals with the new release, in particular Wind River and Microsoft. The company claims it is offering a “real” alternative to proprietary embedded
solutions.
Real-time capabilities in Linux are a particular focus for MontaVista. At
the beginning of August, the company claimed that MontaVista Linux has narrowed the real-time gap for Linux.
Mike Matthews, product line manager for MontaVista Linux Professional
Edition Pro explained that when MontaVista builds 4.0 they actually build it
with three different kernel configurations to support three different modes
of real time.
It could be a full real-time environment in a fully preemptable kernel;
it could be what MontaVista calls desktop real time, which is essentially a
balance between real-time responsiveness and production or application
throughput; or it could be real time turned on completely.
“We do believe we’re moving Linux in the right direction that’s not to
say it’s going to move away from servers and desktops but it will now be
fully capable in the embedded space meeting the most stringent demands,”
Matthews told internetnews.com.
What’s debatable, however, is the definition of what actually constitutes
“hard real time.” Matthews argued that MontaVista feels “very comfortable”
with what it’s able to achieve meeting the hard real-time requirements of
customers.
“The key here is we’re not saying there is one number that defines hard
real time,” Matthews explained. “What we’re saying is hard real time is
defined by project requirements and market requirements.”
Mobile phones have a different set of requirements than telecom and
datacom, according to Matthews.
“Linux will deliver for most application for real-time response,”
Matthews said.
MontaVista is taking aim at Wind River and Microsoft customers, as well as
with the new release. WindRiver’s VxWorks is one of the proprietary
real-time operating systems that MontaVista Linux competes against. Wind
River itself also jumped on the Linux bandwagon back in November 2004.
Matthews noted that convincing Wind River VxWorks users to migrate to
MontaVista is “relatively easy.”
“We’ve been shipping the most important APIs from VxWorks that are used
by the majority of those customers, allowing them to migrate from that
platform to MV easily,” Matthews said. “We have training courses and
professional services. We’ve actually targeted those customers and we’ve
been very successful at pulling them over because VxWorks is
getting a little long in the tooth.”
The current leader in the embedded OS space according to a pair of 2004 studies is Microsoft.
“The key with Microsoft has been to play against their restrictive nature
in terms of licensing and in terms of what they will support,” Matthews
commented. He added that it is strong in consumer electronics but doesn’t have
much in the carrier grade business.
“We’ve already outstripped them in terms of the number of phones in
in the mobile wireless space and it’s partly because they are so restrictive
and a confined environment,” Matthews said.
MontaVista specifically target the mobile space with its Mobilinux platform, which is the basis of a number of mobile devices from Motorola,
NEC and Panasonic. A new version of Mobilinux, which will be based on
MontaVista Pro 4.0, is expected to be released later this year.
Matthews was keen to note that MontaVista is working with the Linux and
open source community, with its real-time efforts. That’s not to say, however,
that what exists in the community is exactly the same as what exists in
MontaVista Linux.
“It’s not simply that everything is offered back to the community and it’s
exactly what MontaVista has,” Matthews explained. “MontaVista has frozen
[code] on a certain level of all the applications, tools, etc., and that’s
why we’re shipping the product.
“The community doesn’t have the stabilized snapshot that MontaVista
produces in a product form.”
The GPL license, which is the Free Software license under which Linux is
distributed, is a reciprocal license and allows for any MontaVista competitor
to also take advantage of the contributions made by MontaVista.
One such
distribution may be TimeSys, which recently unveiled a
“roll-your-own” approach to embedded development, pulling sources from the
community.
“We kind of fund or support our competitors in that way,” Matthews said.
“The big difference is that we’re way ahead in terms of the commercial-grade
product picture.”
