SUNNYVALE, Calif., March 29, 2004 — MontaVista Software Inc., the company powering the embedded revolution, today announced the establishment of the MontaVista LSP Certification Program. In support of the program, which is the first of its kind in the embedded Linux industry, MontaVista Software has also announced the MontaVista Board Support Toolkit (BST) for MontaVista® Linux® Professional Edition. Designed for Independent Hardware Vendors (IHVs) and embedded developers, the BST delivers the test and verification tools needed to accelerate generation of custom Linux Support Packages (LSPs) for certification with MontaVista Linux.
Using the MontaVista Board Support Toolkit, board and system vendors can now create custom Linux Support Packages for their specific chips and boards, which can then be certified by MontaVista. MontaVista Software will provide direct technical customer support for all such certified LSPs.
“MontaVista’s certification program solves a very real problem faced by independent hardware vendors, by allowing them to secure commercial Linux support for their platforms,” said Steve Balacco, Research Analyst, Venture Development Corporation. “Given MontaVista Software’s position as the leading global provider of embedded Linux, hardware vendors will view MontaVista Linux certification as a competitive advantage.”
Embedded developers building devices powered by MontaVista Linux can use the BST to do their own debugging and Q&A, accelerate their product time?to-market, and mitigate unnecessary risk. They can test LSPs on their own custom hardware platforms and improve the efficiency of the porting process while leveraging their own in-house expertise to validate their own LSPs for MontaVista Linux.
“Developers are faced with a large number of quality boards for which they would like to obtain commercial Linux distribution support. The MontaVista LSP Certification Program enables hardware providers to meet this growing need in a self-sufficient manner,” said Glenn Seiler, director, product marketing, MontaVista Software. “Through the program, the Board Support Toolkit enables the proliferation of MontaVista Linux for a huge number of hardware platforms, expanding our ecosystem and market reach. We are obviously delighted to add this product to our existing tools portfolio.”
The MontaVista LSP Certification Program lets IHVs recognize the competitive advantage of supporting MontaVista Linux, the industry leading embedded Linux platform. More importantly, they can control their own development schedule and costs; streamlining time-to-market and focusing resources on their own unique value-add.
About the MontaVista Linux Board Support Toolkit
The MontaVista Board Support Toolkit provides all the elements needed to create and validate custom Linux Support Packages that can be certified to work with MontaVista Linux Professional Edition. It includes graphical tools for packaging LSPs, a test suite for verifying stability, and comprehensive documentation. The BST Creation Tool allows engineers to package a functional kernel port and associated drivers into a format that is compatible with MontaVista Linux. The easy-to-use BST Certification Suite validates LSP layout, architecture, and content, and is compatible with the wide range of application software included with MontaVista Linux.
More information on the Board Support Toolkit is at
www.mvista.com/devrocket/bst
MontaVista Linux Professional Edition
MontaVista Linux Professional Edition delivers a full and comprehensive solution to embedded device manufacturers including an industry-leading embedded operating system and a powerful cross development environment delivering everything developers need to build advanced embedded devices. The product delivers modern OS features such as real-time functionality, multi-process capabilities and multi-threaded remote debugging, with extensive bundled software components including rich networking.
Availability
The MontaVista Linux Board Support Toolkit will be available through MontaVista Software and its worldwide distribution channels in Q2 of 2004.
About MontaVista Software
MontaVista Software is a leading global supplier of systems software and development tools for intelligent connected devices and associated infrastructure. MontaVista powers the embedded revolution by providing Open Source GNU/Linux-based software solutions. Founded in 1999 by real-time operating system pioneer James Ready, MontaVista offers a family of products that address software developer needs encompassing applications ranging from communications infrastructure to consumer electronics. MontaVista products include MontaVista Linux Professional, Consumer Electronics and Carrier Grade Editions. MontaVista DevRocket, a powerful integrated development environment, delivers state-of-the-art development tools across all product editions. MontaVista Graphics offers a rich GUI development tools platform.
Headquartered in the heart of Silicon Valley, in Sunnyvale, Calif., MontaVista Software is a privately held company funded by leading investors such as Alloy Ventures, US Venture Partners, RRE Ventures, WR Hambrecht + Co., IBM, Intel Capital, Sony, Panasonic (Matsushita), Toshiba America and Yamaha Corporation.
Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. MontaVista is a registered trademark of MontaVista Software, Inc. All other product or service names are the property of their respective owners.
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Contacts:
Joe Samagond,
Director of Marketing and Corporate Communications,
MontaVista Software Inc.,
Phone (408) 328-9234,
E-mail: jsamagond@mvista.com
Patricia Colby,
PR Strategy and Business Development,
Pacifico Inc.,
Phone (408) 293-8600 ext. 340,
E-mail: pcolby@pacifico.com”
