MontaVista Delivers 'Real' Linux Alternative to Proprietary Embedded Solutions; MontaVista Announces Professional Edition 4.0 with Hard Real-Time Enhancements and Latest Open Source Technologies.

SUNNYVALE, Calif. -- MontaVista Software Inc., the leading Linux provider for the embedded and telecommunications markets, today announced the next generation of the industry's premier embedded Linux operating system, MontaVista Linux Professional Edition 4.0 (Pro 4.0). Pro 4.0 integrates the latest Linux 2.6 kernel with the most advanced hard real-time capabilities required to develop a wide range of embedded products, from networking and communications, aerospace and defense, to consumer devices and medical electronics.

Multiple industry analyst firms, including Venture Development Corp. (VDC), have sized the 2004 embedded software market at approximately $1 billion. Although this market has traditionally been served by a variety of real-time operating system (RTOS) products, VDC's Embedded Software Strategic Market Intelligence Program 2004 reports Linux is clearly on the rise, now commanding the largest share of current projects by more than 50 percent over the largest proprietary RTOS.

"The technology curve favors Linux," said Steve Balacco, senior analyst, embedded software research group at VDC. "Improvements in Linux itself, faster processors and declining memory prices have combined to launch Linux past the fad stage to become a market reality. MontaVista has played a key role in this trend, both as a pioneer of commercial Linux for embedded systems and in helping the technology advance at a rate that has surprised the industry."

In its fourth generation, MontaVista Professional Edition 4.0 is the first and only commercial embedded Linux operating system to offer the latest real-time enhancements available in Open Source. MontaVista is unique in the embedded industry, with support for more than eight architectures, 30 processor families and more than 150 modern board-level platforms. Pro 4.0 delivers this support along with superior performance and reliability through unique processor family-specific tool chains. Such an offering gives customers and developers the latest and most advanced open source technology with the best performance at the lowest possible cost for their embedded projects.

"MontaVista's roots are in the embedded market, and we understand the strict requirements of our customers and developers. Our goal is to provide technology to enable developers and customers the ability to quickly deliver reliable and differentiated products more economically," said Peder Ulander, vice president of marketing at MontaVista Software. "Linux will continue to steal market share from traditional, embedded solutions. The functionality now found in Pro 4.0 will hasten this trend, due to deep architectural updates made in this new release, the powerful real-time technology previously only found in a traditional RTOS and MontaVista's broad hardware coverage in the industry."

Pro is an open and flexible development environment designed specifically to address the real-time needs of embedded applications.

Pro 4.0 Features Include:

Commercial Grade Linux

--Linux 2.6.10 kernel

--GCC 3.4.3

--Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)

--Advanced graphics features based on X-org

--IPv6, MIPv6, IPSec, VLAN 

--USB 2.0 Host/Device

--Advanced I/O support

--Advanced processing support

MontaVista Advanced Real-Time Support

--Integrated real-time technology with performance benchmarks achieving 200 times more responsive in preemption latency than the standard 2.6 kernel

--New interrupt handler scheduling as prioritized threads

--New real-time configuration option with three selectable modes

--Preemptible kernel, 0(1) scheduler, HRT, CPU affinity, FRD 

Industry's Broadest Platform Support

--8 processor architectures

--10 processor families (32/64 bit) across multiple architectures

--First commercially available embedded Linux support for 64-bit PowerPC

MontaVista DevRocket(TM) Development Environment

--High-performance multithreaded design

--Improved debugger capabilities

--Enhanced integration of open source development tools

--Built on updated Eclipse 3.0.1 and CDT 2.1 technology

Availability

MontaVista Linux Professional Edition 4.0 is available now. Please visit www.mvista.com for details. All MontaVista Software products are available from MontaVista Software and the company's sales and distribution channels worldwide. For more information, please contact [e-mail].

Industry Support

"Price pressures are forcing many of our customers to look at Linux as an alternative to traditional real-time operating systems," said Charlie Ashton, director of PowerPC software at AMCC. "MontaVista Pro 4.0 and AMCC PowerPC 440 processors provide the ideal platform for our customers who need a cost-effective solution requiring a complete and robust operating environment."

"A growing number of embedded Linux developers are basing their projects on ARM(R) technology and MontaVista Linux," said Mary Inglis, director of operating systems and alliances at ARM. "MontaVista Pro 4.0's key real-time technologies combined with support for the new Application Binary Interface (ABI) for the ARM(R) architecture and RealView(R) Platform Baseboards enable our partners to extract the best performance from their designs."

"With MontaVista's embedded Linux expertise and experience in advancing real-time Linux technology, we are confident that Pro 4.0 will continue to address the unique requirements of the embedded market," said Mike Shoemake, PowerQUICC marketing manager at Freescale Semiconductor. "Pro 4.0 availability will help enable Freescale to continue delivering integrated and tested platforms based on our PowerQUICC and PowerPC processors to customers looking to build differentiated products."

"IBM requires a Linux operating environment certified to support our market-leading 64-bit 970FX high-performance development platforms," said Ron Martino, director, PPC standard products at IBM. "Now our customers can rely on MontaVista Pro 4.0, a reliable and comprehensive Linux solution."

"Our customers constantly face constraints on system cost, and at the same time they are required to add more performance and functionality to their designs," said Russ Bell, vice president of marketing at MIPS Technologies Inc. "MontaVista Linux Pro 4.0, together with the MIPS32(R) 24K(R) and 4KE(TM) core families, offers a compelling solution for designers of embedded systems who must deal with this tradeoff."

About MontaVista Software

MontaVista Software is the leading embedded Linux provider for the telecommunications market, delivering a complete, flexible and open operating system that allows system designers to innovate across a wide range of mobile and wireless devices and communications infrastructures. Founded in 1999 by real-time operating system pioneer James Ready, and headquartered in the heart of Silicon Valley, in Sunnyvale, Calif., MontaVista's commercial-grade Linux helps customers differentiate their products and get them to market faster and at a lower development cost. For more information about MontaVista Software, please visit http://www.mvista.com.

Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. MontaVista is a registered trademark of MontaVista Software Inc. All other names mentioned are trademarks, registered trademarks or service marks of their respective owners.