MontaVista Drives Linux Into New Markets With the Latest Release of its Proven Linux Solution for Mobile Devices.

Mobilinux 4.1 Ups the Ante on Footprint Reduction

SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- MontaVista Software, Inc., the leading embedded Linux provider for the telecommunications, mobile, and embedded markets, today announced a new release of Mobilinux, a product built to address key areas of development for mobile and wireless devices. Mobilinux includes tools to help reduce footprint, saving on RAM and Flash. Mobilinux 4.1 incorporates technologies such as uClibc, squashfs and DirectFB and developer tools focused on memory analysis, which allow for significantly reduced total memory footprint.

"For handset manufacturers, sustainable competitive advantage requires cost and time-to-market efficiencies and product differentiation. Globally, manufacturers are looking to Linux as the platform for their next generation designs," said John Jackson, senior analyst, The Yankee Group. "MontaVista Software's work in adapting Linux for the mobile handset market has catalyzed a platform migration movement among many of the top manufacturers. MontaVista Linux alone now powers 20 million phones. Most of these are in Asia with tremendous expansion beginning in the European and North American markets."

As software complexity increases, manufacturers are forced to seek out more robust software platforms that easily facilitate migration from voice-focused devices to much more multimedia intensive clients. Mobilinux 4.1 delivers an advanced, highly scalable operating system enabling differentiated and cost effective phone designs while giving operators the ability to leverage a single platform from the network to the device.

"Given highly fragmented market requirements, the ability to address a variety of customers by making small modifications or extensions to a common platform can reduce many of the challenges facing handset manufacturers today," said Hugues De La Vergne, principal research analyst, Gartner. "Linux is one potential way to address those problems that directly affect manufacturers seeking to achieve a degree of control they believe necessary to continue growing their business."

Mobilinux is an optimized Linux operating system and development environment, ideally suited for wireless handsets and mobile devices. Mobilinux is engineered with a focus on:

* Addressing handset manufacturer and mobile operator specifications through open and industry standard technologies

* Ensuring platform stability and scalability

* Maximizing battery and size performance

Mobilinux Features Include:

* Footprint Improvements

* uClibc - create full-featured C/C++ applications

* DirectFB - ability to build more mobile applications with robust graphics support

* Squashfs - increased file system capacity for persistent data storage

* Improved stability and reliability

* Footprint improvements vs traditional X Windows apps

* Advanced Real-Time Support

* Support requirements for mass-market, single-chip phone designs

* Power Management Improvements

* Dynamic Power Management (DPM) improves power performance through adjustments on-the-fly

* MontaVista Power Manager

* Platform independent DPM Library

* Variable Scheduling Timeouts (VST)

* Memory-type based allocation (MTA)

About MontaVista Software

MontaVista is the leading embedded Linux provider for the telecommunications market. MontaVista delivers a complete, flexible and open operating system which allows designers to innovate across a wide range of mobile and wireless devices and communications infrastructures. Headquartered in Santa Clara, Calif., MontaVista has operations in 15 countries. For more information, please visit 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.