Yesterday semiconductor supplier Cavium Networks announced its plans to acquire embedded Linux pioneer MontaVista Software.  MontaVista, founded in 1999 by Jim Ready (of Ready Systems / VRTX reknown) was among the first to commercialize and evangelize Linux for embedded designs.  It was one of the few remaining independent vendors in the embedded Linux business when Cavium snapped it up yesterday for $16M in cash and $34M in stock.

When Silicon Buys Software and Services

The acquisition is the latest in a string of M&A moves by silicon vendors hoping to gain an edge in filling sockets by providing software tools, platforms and services.  The most recent, most visible and most lucrative was Intel’s buy of Wind River earlier this year for a cool $884M, most palpably to support design-in of Intel’s mobile/embedded Atom architecture family.  Others include

• Motorola Semiconductor (now Freescale) purchase of MetroWerks in 2003
• Mentor Graphics acquisition of Embedded Alley earlier in 2009 (Mentor helps companies design semiconductors)

Independent embedded Linux companies remaining after Cavium’s move are much smaller players like TimeSys,  services provider Denx and Linux tools supplier Viosoft.

Why MontaVista, Why Now?

Cavium’s stated reasons for the buy are to “complement Cavium’s market leading processor portfolio” and to  “significantly increase Cavium’s software and services revenue”, which in 2009 could amount to a top-line bump of $30M according to Cavium’s investor call.  Unstated are likely concerns about sustaining Cavium’s traditionally close ties with Wind River for design wins with popular Cavium MIPS architecture CPUs for networking and other applications.

MontaVista, for its part, has reportedly been courting suitors for three years or more, after multiple funding rounds that totaled over $100M since the company’s founding in 1999.  The marriage with Cavium reflects the embedded Linux supplier’s long-standing ties to semiconductor suppliers, including  AMCC, Freescale, Intel, Marvell, and Texas Instruments, and processor IP providers ARM and MIPS Technologies.  Many were also strategic investors and sources of substantial historical enablement revenue.  It also probably reflects the state of the firm’s revenues and cash reserves.

Analysis – Acquisition a Bang or a Whimper?

The acquisition is certainly a bang for Cavium.  They get revenue growth, enabling technology, expertise and new ecosystem reach.  But for MontaVista?  They get financial security (for now) and a place in a strong and growing technology supplier.  However, this acquisition surely falls short of the “event” once envisioned by Ready and his many investors.

MontaVista made a strong start in 1999 and 2000, riding the wave of infrastructure build-out to support what later turned into the Internet bubble.  Even after that bubble burst, MontaVista continued to grow, complementing still-strong networking business with consumer electronics, mobile telephony and other intelligent device application segments.  They achieved an impressive series of “firsts” in bringing Linux and open source software (OSS) to the embedded space:

• First commercial cross tools and fully embedded platform for Power, MIPS and ARM architectures
• First support for redefinable CPU architectures
• First to market with a Carrier Grade Linux platform
• First mass deployments in dozens mobile handset designs and millions of handsets with MobiLinux

and

• Key enhancements in real-time responsiveness of the Linux kernel
• Investment in maintaining Linux kernel architecture trees, including especially PowerPC and multiple ARM family CPUs
• Important advances in and contributions to  open source projects, including the Linux kernel and device drivers, threading libraries, power management, GDBserver and numerous others
• Early support for embedded multicore architectures and designs
• Industry leadership in evangelizing embedded Linux and providing assurances about the IP safety of embedded open source

So why did an acquisition occur not at first, but at last?  How was late starter Wind River able to enter the embedded Linux space in earnest after MontaVista’s five year head-start,  and eclispe MontaVista in Linux-based revenues and ultimately in valuation?

For all of the company’s “firsts”, MontaVista took numerous missteps, slowing its growth and causing it to miss multiple windows of opportunity:

Value-added:  for most of its history, MontaVista primarily acted as an integrator of OSS projects, treading water and often swimming below the ever-rising open source value line.  True innovation emerged from the company, but always so low in the stack (mostly in the kernel) that they were unsuccessful in commanding a premium for it.

Revenue Scaling: Because they packaged up and commercialized a broad array of existing projects, and marketed them as development seats to engineers, MontaVista revenue growth was always limited by their ability to capture development teams as customers. They resisted both developing deployment IP or reselling run-time technology from 3rd parties, limiting their opportunity to benefit from successful high-volume OEM customer products.  At one time the company did offer a per-unit licensing option for this aggregated open source content.  Primarily a response to requirements for risk-sharing from key customers, this short-lived selling model baffled many in the industry who assumed that OSS code could only accrue services revenues.

Sustaining vs. Enabling Revenue: MontaVista cultivated strong ties to semiconductor suppliers and other hardware vendors, and was successful for many years in charging a premium for hardware enablement and upstream migration of patches and other code to support CPUs, SoCs and embedded computers.  At various times, the company was more successful in extracting revenues for enabling reference hardware than for supporting OEMs in building product on those systems and silicon.  The result of such strong business development was a product line bloated with board support packages that never saw the light of day in shipping OEM products but added substantial time and costs to new releases and sustaining engineering.  This focus on enablement also served to alienate  partners over time when they could not justify ROI  for their NRE.

Business Model and Execution:  Many MontaVista watchers have argued that the company’s business model was essentially flawed. Certainly there is room for debate about the viability of going to market with a product built almost entirely from freely available OSS components (vs. complementing that platform with proprietary IP, etc.).  Such a model based on building with and for open source can devolve into less attractive high-overhead packaged service business in the face of a rising value line.

By contrast, I would argue that MontaVista insiders and its various detractors were in no position to critique the business model itself since that model (and its minor variations) was never really tested.  The model did not fail the company, but rather the company failed to execute on that model.

Failure to execute belies key assumptions about serving device OEMs with embedded Linux platforms and toolkits:

• OEMs look to suppliers like MontaVista for productization of the latest Linux kernel technology, libaries, middleware and tools
• OEMs expect frequent releases and deep expertise at many levels of the platform and tools
• OEMs anticipate something “in the box” other than bits and bytes they can increasingly source directly from OSS project trees

While MontaVista made a strong start in all these areas, over time they reduced the  investments needed to meet these (not unreasonable) expectations. In the last five years, MontaVista Linux releases became fewer and farther between and did not closely track ongoing Linux kernel and other OSS project evolution.  The company lost most of its hallmark on-staff project maintainers, along with their insight and hands-on knowledge.  And the firm never made sorely needed investments in truly original differentiating technologies and products.

In closing, I remember my first encounter with the company shortly after its founding in the Spring of 1999.  I was doing a trade study of emerging embedded Linux with a colleague and we pondered the future of Jim Ready’s then-new company.  Based on the history of Ready Systems and its flagship VRTX RTOS (acquired by Microtec Research for a modest sum in 1994) we debated whether this new venture would rise to spectacular success or  ultimately stumble.

I guess we were both right.

I recently published an article entitled “Android Beyond Mobile” in the venerable RTC Magazine, a war horse technical  publication focused on real-time and embedded computing:

Originally a niche platform for mobile handsets, Android is moving into a host of embedded applications building on Linux, Java and the desires of users to frequently bring new applications into existing embedded devices. [Read More]

In the mobile/wireless development circles I frequent, the piece has been well circulated, but I have to admit that  the concept has quickly gained currency, with or without my advocacy.  For example, at the recent ARM techcon3 developers conference, the Android workshops offered by Mentor Graphics for general embedded development were standing-room-only affairs.  I also just helped MIPS Technologies host their MIPS Linux Summit, where the focus was on Linux but much of of the buzz from IP licensees and developers alike came from Android on MIPS architecture designs in networking and multimedia.

This evening, I came across an article by my friend and colleague, Open IT Strategies blogger and professor at SJSU Joel West.  The article  highlights the next wave of Android disruption with a focus on the emerging eReader market, in particular on the Android-based Nook eBook from Barnes and Noble.

First phones, then netbooks, now eBooks, multimedia players, TVs, set-top boxes, DVRs — even industrial control and medical devices are turning to Android as an enabling platform, replete with applications from the Android Market and a growing ecosystem of developers and commercial players. I am almost ready to lay odds that within two years, Android will find its way into more intelligent devices outside of mobile telephony than it will in just mobile handsets.

Readers – am I crazy?  Please, tell me about your plans to deploy Android beyond mobile and how the Google/OHA platform is changing development and deployment of your intelligent device designs.

Continuing the trend of consolidation started by Intel’s acquisition of Wind River, Mentor Graphics announced today that the EDA vendor was acquiring Embedded Alley, a supplier of embedded Linux and Android solutions and services.  In bringing Embedded Alley into the Mentor Graphics family, the company (finally) makes its entry into the open source embedded marketplace, complementing its deeply-embedded legacy proprietary RTOSes, Nucleus and VRTX, with the Embedded Alley Development System for Linux and for Android, along with complementary services.

The announcement comes on the heels of Embedded Alley’s very successful launch of tools and services for deploying the Google Android platform in non-mobile applications, specifically for MIPS and Power Architecture CPUs in designs ranging from portable multimedia to home entertainment to automotive to instrumentation to industrial control.  These applications align closely with Mentor Graphics embedded target markets, and Embedded Alley competence in Linux and Android clearly  motivated the acquisition.

Mentor Graphics and Embedded Software – A Brief History

Mentor Graphics is unique among EDA suppliers in making consistent, long-term investments in embedded software to complement the company’s more traditional design tools and services offerings.   With the acquisition of  Embedded Alley,  a relatively young company, but one with already strong traction in embedded open source, the mature Mentor Graphics Embedded Software Division substantiates its long-held vision for full device life-cycle coverage, from silicon design through device software deployment.

The history of that business unit reflects Mentor’s investments towards that same end:

• 1990-1994 : Mentor partnered closely with Microtec Research (my employer until 1993)
• 1994 : Microtec Research acquires Ready Systems (provider of VRTX, founded by Jim Ready of more recent MontaVista renown)
• 1995 : Mentor Graphics acquires Microtec Research and established Embedded S/W Division, with compiler (MCC), debugger (XRAY) and RTOS (VRTX) offerings
• 2002 : Mentor Graphics acquires Accelerated Technology, providers of the Nucleus RTOS and tools
• 2006 : Mentor acquired Embedded Performance Inc, provider of JTAG hardware debug tools

Key Points

The announcement carries implications for reshaping the embedded software landscape:

• The Mentor Graphics Embedded Software Division has always been a part of the a much larger software products company.  The announcement signals Mentor’s design to grow its embedded business, but as a services offering
• While Nucleus (and VRTX before it) enjoyed most of its design wins as a deeply embedded OS (e.g., in mobile, for baseband processing in over 1B handsets), the Linux and Android technology purveyed by Embedded Alley is definitively for hosting highly visible value-added applications
• Unlike the Intel acquisition of Wind River, this merger is not designed to pull silicon into new designs (e.g., Atom in 3G mobile) but rather to expand a broad base of non-mobile embedded projects using Linux and Android (although I am sure that mobile is not 100% off the table), to complement Mentor’s EDA tools and broaden the company’s ability to address OEM product life cycles
• Also unlike the Intel-Wind River deal, in which Intel’s vast open source capability and experience was joined to Wind’s lesser but still mature Linux services capability, Mentor is looking to Embedded Alley to reinvent their embedded business around Linux, Android and open source.

Wednesday’s Press Event

The acquisition was announced on Wednesday, July 29 in San Francisco at the Design Automation Conference (DAC), at an exclusive press-only event.  Presentations by Mentor Graphics and Embedded Alley executives were followed by partner talks from ARM, MIPS and those companies’ silicon licensees.  The lineup also featured a lively pitch by Jim Zemlin of the Linux Foundation.

The New Embedded Linux/Android Opportunity, Post Wind River

With Embedded Alley on board, Mentor is well positioned to exploit the highly visible gap left when Intel snapped up Wind River.  Despite Alameda’s strong messages of continuity, OS, tools and services companies have been circling around semiconductor suppliers hoping to secure relationships and design wins for ARM, MIPS and Power Architecture that Wind is unlikely to pursue as part of Intel and the Atom juggernaut.

While there is no denying that Intel’s acquisition leaves Wind River’s traditional silicon relationships open to new challengers, those relationships were never exclusive.  Mentor and the rest of industry will still have to execute on their hopes/intentions to exploit the gaps left by Wind-Intel, with competitive technologies, platforms and services, something few have been able to do to date, on both tilted and level playing fields.

Deep Background and Fun Facts

I myself have a long history with Mentor and its Embedded Software division.  I actually worked for Microtec Research from 1988 to 1993 as product manager for XRAY and for the popular 68000 tool suite.  I exited right before the merger with Ready Systems and the subsequent purchase of the company by Mentor, and moved to Brazil (1993-1996, the Lost Years).   In 2005, I actually presented on embedded Linux at the Mentor Graphics sales kickoff in San Francisco.  I was asked by then VP of Marketing Robert Day to give the team a “wake up call” and I did my best to open their eyes.   In the face of persistent denial on the part of the Nucleus OS and tools sales teams, I explained that Linux and OSS were already eating their proverbial lunch, and that OEMs deployed the open source OS not BECAUSE of its attributes but rather IN SPITE of those same attributes.

The acquisition brings a chapter of embedded software history full circle:  as cited above , Microtec acquired Ready Systems and was then bought by Mentor.   In 1999, Jim Ready exited Mentor Graphics to found MontaVista Software (I was there too!).  Almost the entirety of the Embedded Alley team, from CEO Pete Popov to CTO Dan Malek to COO Matt Locke to the firm’s two dozen other staffers worked for MontaVista before founding/joining Embedded Alley.  President Paul Staudacher worked at Mentor until he joined MontaVista in 1999.

And now, Embedded Alley is “back”, inside Mentor, where they will hopefully reinvent the company’s embedded business and probably a goodly portion of the EDA and embedded industries as well.

Last week’s buzz over Google’s announcement of its Chrome desktop (and presumably notetop) OS led me and my readers to ask why the Silicon Valley behemoth needs two mobile OSes.  If device OEMs are working to retool, refactor  and deploy Android for netbooks, why can’t Google do the same?

Google’s rationale for launching Chrome as a separate OS from Android centers on differences in visual form factor and connectivity, as aligned with Google’s commercial goals. Google’s building and backing of Android  was motivated by the company’s desire to promulgate its search-and-advertising revenue model to ubiquitous 3G mobile hardware.

While Google could have continued with distribution of  various mobile apps (Maps, etc.) and mobile browser-based search on competing platforms (especially iPhone), the company appears to want to create a more integrated mobile experience and also be able to gather user data uniquely associated with mobile use cases.  Google also needed a mobile OS that had stand-alone, stateful capabilities, given the still-evolving level of connectivity and available bandwidth on 3G networks, especially in North America. Building Android to run Java (Dalvik is J2SE compatible) also gives OEMs deploying the platform the ability to leverage both existing mobile developer expertise (still very Java-centric) as well enterprise and desktop Java-savvy developers.

The desktop, by contrast, already has a working search-and-advertising model at larger visual form factors, but also enjoys high bandwidth connectivity.  For tethered devices with broadband, it makes more sense to build a web-based OS, in this case with the Chrome browser and a stripped down version of Linux.

Google’s choices reflect a dynamic I have documented in some of my recent blog entries, emphasizing that there is a difference in coming “down from notebooks” and “up from handsets”.  As sales of traditional (too soon to say legacy?) desktop PC and fully-loaded notebooks have flattened and perhaps begin to slide, the trend from PC manufacturers has been to cost-down those devices.  A web-based OS for PCs, notebooks and now netbooks supports that trend, requiring less memory, minimal mass storage, and less potent client CPUs (even as multi-core silicon becomes cheaply available).

On the “up from phones” curve, Android supports smarter smartphones, while still being a mobile phone OS (telephony, power management, footprint, LBS, etc.).

I myself do not see a clear point of convergence, just convergent trends.  The key for success for notebooks and netbooks with diminishing provisioning will be Google’s and others’ ability to leverage the cloud. To date, minimalist netbooks, running versions of Linux, have failed to make the jump from local to cloud computing for two reasons:  because PC OEMs and their channels still upsell on specs, leaving space for Microsoft as users opt to extend/mimic the desktop experience with Windows, Office, etc. and more strategically, because the value proposition of the cloud does not yet translate to the average end user.

With all the fuss over Chrome as a gauntlet thrown down to Microsoft, I think these and other basic questions are going unanswered.  I’d be eager to hear your views.

I woke up this morning to a train of email from friends and fellow pundits, intrigued and even aghast that Intel had announced its intentions of acquiring embedded industry leader Wind River Systems.  The purchase, while very much newsworthy, is not a huge surprise in an industry where low market caps and niche offerings are the rule.

Embedded Systems (or Device Software, as Wind River calls it), as a segment is defined not by its customers, but by the vendor community. Device OEMs self-identify as developers of networking equipment, consumer devices, automotive systems, medical devices, instrumentation, etc. — not “embedded systems” or “device software”.  This perennial identity crisis is part of the reason for my own saw - the embedded market is all tail and no body.

Plumpest Part of a Long Tail

That being said, Wind River has for several decades occupied the most massive part of the tail (closest to the rump) and enjoyed a clear leadership position.  Its revenues for device software have only been rivaled by Microsoft, but only if you add up designs for Windows Mobile, CE, NT/XP Embedded and secondary use of WindowsXP and other desktop/server variants on blades and embedded motherboards.  Not only have they led the overall segment, but their product line revenues also put them at the forefront of the RTOS market (with VxWorks) and the embedded Linux sub-segment (with Wind River Linux).

Wind Historically Blew off x86

One issue with the acquisition, from the embedded software side, is that historically Wind has never garnered the greatest share of its design wins on Intel silicon.  Far more successful, first for VxWorks and later for the company’s Linux offering, have been architectures like ARM, PowerPC (Power Architecture) and MIPS.  In the last year, the major thrust of the company has been towards mobile handsets, with visible investment in Android and LiMo products and services offerings — all built around ARM CPUs.

Certainly the Intel acquisition reflects the investment that the two companies have made in their partnership to promote Atom over the last year, in particular for automotive designs.  To be fair and accurate, Wind River has also enjoyed a number of key design wins on single-board computers and blades with Intel Architecture CPUs, especially for its Carrier Grade Linux implementation, at companies like Nortel.

Intel – Off and On Again with Embedded Silicon

Intel’s acquisition of Wind River follows multiple forays into the embedded market on the silicon side.  Each time they have enjoyed reasonable success but ultimately never took their eyes off their most lucrative businesses, enterprise servers, desktops and notebooks.  A friend at Intel once despaired that their “embedded chips, revenue-wise, were a wart on the butt of desktop and data center”.

While much hype surrounds the Atom family of processors, it is actually the company’s sixth (and probably best) entrant into the embedded processor market:

1. Of course, the 8008, 8080 and 8085, all originally embedded silicon
2. 8031 and 8051 CPUs — long-lived 8-bit microcontrollers, in the “pre-software period” of embedded history (assembly only)
3. Bigger/better 16/32 bit 80860 and 80960 RISC CPUs, which ended up in a mix of storage, graphics and aerospace applications
4. Repositioning low-end 386 CPUs for SBCs and custom designs
5. Intel’s expensive and short-lived licensing of ARM cores as XScale mobile applications (PXA), network (IXP) and storage processors (the XScale brand and technology were sold off to Marvell in 2006)

This evolutionary record alone, however, doesn’t not justify the current investment in all thing Atomic, including buying our friends in Alameda.  What does obviously motivate these investments is the slow death of the PC desktop form factor, already manifested as flat desktop silicon sales, the recession notwithstanding.

Metrowerks II?

A friend of mine pointed out a structural similarity in this acquisition to Freescale (then Motorola Semiconductor) buying compiler and tool vendor MetroWerks way back in 1999 (these historical references are showing my age!).  While the analogy is attractive and superficially accurate, key differences include

• The market caps with Intel and Wind are greater by 10x or more
• Neither MetroWerks nor Motorola Semiconductor held the clear leadership positions of Wind River and Intel
• The emergence of Linux and open source (especially GNU tools) led to the decline of MetroWerks CodeWarrier as much as immersion within Motorola

Industry Impact

This type of cross-segment consolidation in theory results in a powerhouse successor company, but also causes rippling realignments among other players, in this case embedded software and silicon suppliers.  The remaining players, traditionally fragmented and balkanized, are sure to build new ties to replace those with Intel and Wind, and to construct bulwarks against them.

Obvious question arising from the acquisition include

• To what degree will Intel management constrain Wind River, over time, to focus on Intel architectures?
• How successful will Atom be in volume applications beyond netbooks?  How will acquiring Wind help with designs for in-car, in-home, in-hand and in-strumentation?
• Can Wind River retain international mega-customers like NEC and Samsung, whose semiconductor subsidiaries compete head-on with Intel?
• Will embedded software companies like Embedded Alley, GreenHills, LynuxWorks, MontaVista, QNX,  TimeSys, et al. even continue to support Intel silicon with RTOS and embedded Linux offerings?  Are they sufficiently agile and creative to take advantage of opportunities created by the acquisition, or will they be swamped by it?
• Will ARM and MIPS and their licensees, as well as Freescale and AMCC with Power Architecture, win or lose designs?  Can Atom compete with 1B+ annual ARM shipments?
• What other consolidation will follow on this heels of interesting turn of events?

The recession has put enormous pressure on the players in embedded and mobile ecosystem.  It’s not that large a club and not that well capitalized.  More shoes will shortly drop, heads will roll.  Stay tuned.

Last week, I made a case for rethinking the role of Linux in mobile computing all together – eschewing the endless game of catchup inherent in the desktop/notebook market (as it applies to increasingly able netbooks), that Linux-based netbooks need to look Up from Phones, Not Down from Notebooks.

Readers responded, most interestingly to debate whether netbook vendors ever really wanted to ship Linux as a long-term solution, or whether ASUS and others had just “run up the Linux flag” as a way to get Redmond to negotiate better price points.

I was happy to read that Matt Asay saw potential for mobile Linux-based devices as I still do – his Open Road blog entry “Hit Microsoft where it ain’t” is definitely worth reading, as is Dana Blankenhorn’s ZDnet blog on “Linux and the Channel“.  Sam Dean narrows the discussion from the whole channel down to the essential issue of product differentiation in his thoughtful blog entry “Linux Netbooks – What’s the secret sauce for sales?“

But is it really too late for Linux on Netbooks?

Is this potentially vibrant new marketplace doomed to share the fate of desktop Linux? Real hope lies in learning from the desktop debacle and re-inventing the open source OSS as a first-class service delivery vehicle.  In that vein, I have listed some suggestions for netbook manufacturers, purveyors of Linux and the developer community:

Focus on integrating into operator programs

Even if you think that operators face disintermediation and dumb-pipe obsolescence, they still “own” the networks and are the drivers of current and next-generation rollout. They also represent a channel focused on service delivery as opposed to desktop hardware and accompanying expectations for margins etc.

Build on handset design concepts, not desktop expectations

If consumers wanted a Linux desktop experience, they’d have long since bought into actual desktops running Ubuntu and other consumer friendly distros. By contrast, Linux actually provides the foundation for a swath of very successful handsets, from the Motorola Ming, which handily captured a full percent of the Chinese mobile market – that’s 30-40 million units for a single handset model – to NEC Panasonic handsets in Japan to current generation Motorola ROKRs and RAZRs and the exploding market of Android-based devices.

Consumers buy and use these devices not because they run free software in general or Linux in particular, but because they deliver operator services in stylish and functional packages.

Focus on user experience, not just BoM

Even if operators are intent on squeezing costs to preserve services margins, Linux-based mobile devices must still provide compelling user experiences. Put aside the KDE vs. GNOME debate and focus on helping both operators and ISVs deliver applications – in this space the competition isn’t Windows, it’s the iPhone apps store, it’s Blackberry enterprise integration and outside the US, it’s the SymbianOS ecosystem.

Rather than focus on the “mobile desktop”, provide applications resources for rich graphics, multimedia, gesture-based MMI, skinning, and personalization in a netbook-sized package.

Look to Android as netbook platform

Many Linux purists dismiss Android as the insidious invention of the Google Borg and as a shiny tomb for the Linux kernel buried inside it. However, it may be the only viable vector for bringing Linux and open source to programmable mass-market devices. Android is cropping up everywhere – originally targeted to appeal to Tier II and III Asian handset OEMs and ODMs, it now constitutes the core of platform strategies at Tier I mobile suppliers like Samsung, Motorola, and LG. More importantly, Android caters to operator requirements for a services-centric customizable user experience.

Whether or not you like Android for its own sake, it creates opportunities for partnership among Google, operators, ISVs/OSVs, and other third parties. As a platform and a phenomenon it is building bridges across market chasms once considered unspannable. Just consider HTC, once a bastion of Windows Mobile handsets. The Taiwanese OEM is today the first and leading provider on phones based on Android.

Google, OHA members and others have also telegraphed their plans to deploy Android as a netbook OS. Early rumblings have emerged from Freescale for a $199 netbook based on their i.MX CPU, and other mobile-savvy semiconductor suppliers like TI and Marvell are likely to follow suit with their ARM-based offerings. Artesian efforts have also surfaced, demonstrating Android ported to currently available netbooks like the ASUS Eee PC.

Android Beyond Mobile

Android for operator-subsidized netbooks will also gain momentum and credibility from related deployment and crossover onto other content delivery devices, like digital TVs, set-top boxes, DVRs, satellite receivers and automotive in-vehicle infotainment systems.  Earlier this week Embedded Alley announced delivery of a development system targeting MIPS-based devices.  MIPS Technologies and their architecture licensee RMI also announced plans for Android support.

As always, I appreciate reader comments and feedback.  I am especially interested what readers think of the current state of Android and its chances for success in mobile devices and beyond.

In the next and final segment of this topic, I will talk about trends in the underlying mobile processors, and then zoom right up to the synergies among netbooks, Linux and the Cloud.

Last week I began a discussion of whether Linux will survive as an OS for netbooks.  I received a number of comments, some highlighting which netbook OEMs favored which Linux distros, other despairing at the paucity of verifiable market numbers (a distress that I share).  One reader pointedly chastised me not to

“overlook the fact that, after being caught off guard by netbooks, MS bent over backwards to get XP-based netbooks on the shelves. Then, they forced the Linux netbooks off the shelves with exclusivity agreements and strong-arm tactics. It’s rather difficult to sell Linux-based netbooks when the retail outlets have been bullied by MS to only stock XP-based netbooks.”

I am actually keenly aware of Redmond’s “negotiating skills”.  In the mid-1990s, while I was at Acer Latin America,  our entire group was audited by Microsoft.  It seemed that our mix of DOS, Windows and Windows for Workgroups was too skewed towards the command line for Redmond’s bottom line.   Our channels licensed a lot of DOS, principally to enable installation of Netware, UNIX and yes, also Linux, especially in Brazil where I was based.  The audit lasted three months and actually shut down several of Acer’s smaller regional subsidiaries. We “got the point” but didn’t change our OS mix until Window95 appeared a year later.

Mobile Phone (Volume) Lust
I think that one strategic error made by purveyors of Linux netbooks was to covet the volumes of the global mobile telephony market while following the business models and channels of the legacy notebook marketplace.  Linux fans – .orgs, Linux ISVs and device OEMS – unfortunately approached the netbook opportunity as a downward extension of the desktop and portable PC business, with volumes of 297M units in 2008 (IDC).

Instead, the Linux ecosystem needs to envision netbooks (and MIDs and tablets) as building on the worldwide mobile handset business, with its 1.28B annual unit shipments (Gartner) the most lucrative slice of which, smart phones, constitutes 14% (ABI) with 20% annual growth rates.
The structure and dynamics of the mobile handset market depart from the PC business on several parameters:

• End users (a majority in the US) acquire their devices from service providers, not from the retail channels favored by PCs and notebooks
• Mobile operators and carriers view handsets first as service delivery vehicles and second as applications platforms
• Operators subsidize handset acquisition costs, making up their margins over multi-year service contracts

This time-worn model is beginning to break down, however, challenged by flat and falling voice revenues, encroaching VoIP services from “virtual” network operators, and surging EDGE and 3G data traffic that threatens to overwhelm existing network capacity.
As a means to preserve flagging ARPUs (Average Revenue Per User), mobile operators and regional carriers are accelerating next-generation (4G) rollout, emphasizing data, not voice, on WiMax and soon on LTE (Long-Term Evolution) in select markets, as well as experimenting with pure data business models over existing WiFi access points.  Most interestingly, after lackluster efforts of marketing WiMax and WiFi network interface cards to existing notebook owners, operators like ATT, T-Mobile and Verizon are instead following their historical playbook and bundling Linux-based netbooks with data services subscriptions through their own channels.
This bundling, unlike CE/Retail channels, actually has the ability to leverage the presumed virtues of Linux-based netbooks:

• Lightweight BoM further subsidized by data plan subscriptions
• Greater opportunity for operators to preserve and build on brand equity and differentiate through custom applications and services (as with mobile phones)
• Built-in network access and ability to leverage the Cloud

Such programs have the further charm of driving 3G+/4G revenue in the short and mid-term preserving ARPUs with data (rather than voice) and for building subscriber loyalty.

But will operators build out the mainsream versions of these programs using Linux-based devices?  Can developers and purveyors of Linux sieze this opportunity and stay in the netbook game?  Let me know what you think as we continue this discussion next week.

Linux on netbooks.  What a concept!  Same great experience, but less filling.  Not!

What a difference a year makes.  After initial unbridled enthusiasm in 2008, Linux-based netbooks, MIDs and similar devices are taking a beating, delivered by, you guessed it — Microsoft. Consumers avoid Linux netbooks, manufacturers despair over immovable inventory – only free software enthusiasts seem ready to adopt these orphaned devices.
So why isn’t 2009 the “Year of Mobile Linux”? On paper, the case for deploying Linux on netbooks and MIDs looks compelling:

• Lower Bill of Materials (B0M), both from shedding the “Windows Tax” and from more minimal provisioning of DRAM, HDD and client-based applications

• More flexible system architecture – no lock-in to the “Wintel-PC virtual machine”

• Customizable look-and-feel for OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers) eager to distance their brand from Microsoft

• Ability to leverage web apps (like Google’s) and emerging Cloud Computing resources

Marketplace reality quickly proved that the best-laid plans of OEMs and ISVs often go awry.  In the first half of 2008, OEM enthusiasm for Linux-based netbooks was so great that Windows (XP and CE) garnered only 10% of the pre-installed market.  By Q1 of 2009, Windows had come back with a vengeance, boasting 96% of netbooks shipping with Windows-family OSes (Source: NPD Group).
Linux Netbooks appear to be doomed to repeat the sad history of desktop Linux.  However “free” netbook Linux may be, consumers have not found it sufficiently compelling to leap across the historical functionality gap (perceived or real) from Windows.  Moreover, as netbook capabilities creep up on low-end notebook specs, consumers expect to be able to run familiar Office applications, and to browse, view and play web sites and multimedia content just as they do on Windows desktops.
Despite significant advances in content handling over earlier generations of desktop Linux, netbook end-users found Linux-based devices unwieldy and apparently unreliable. Not only did new device sales falter, but buyers returned the devices in droves.
Quite simply, the rationale for Linux-based netbooks proved irrational in the real world:

• Leveraging Linux for a lighter BoM (Bill of Materials) proved less appealing when Microsoft cut XP licensing fees and ever-cheaper memory, storage and CPUs closed much of the notebook-netbook capability gap.

• Netbooks with full PCI buses and other PC-like capabilities eased XP installation, especially for OEMs already familiar with notebook design, like Taiwanese ASUS and Acer.  Asian Tigers, while adopting Linux for more deployed embedded applications, are still more comfortable with Redmondware for mass-market consumer products.

• Consumer reaction to first-generation netbook-centric look-and-feel proved unenthusiastic.  Ubuntu, while a great Linux desktop, failed to impress mass market users; Moblin 1.0 wasn’t ready for prime-time and Mobile 2.0 arriving in 2009, was too late.

• Netbooks intended to leverage emerging Cloud Computing relied on the vagaries of end-user network and cloud access, sending consumers scurrying back to client-based productivity software on better-provisioned Windows-based devices.

The combination of these factors, when pushed through multi-tier consumer product sales channels, proved to be a retail nightmare and a dead end for Linux and Open Source.

Next week I’ll again pick up this topic, comparing how Linux the mobile Linux dynamic differs depending on whether you come “down from notebooks” or “up from mobile phones”.

Mobile Conference at OpenSource World™ 2009
Aug 10-13 San Francisco CA
Call for Papers Now Open – Mobile Platforms and Applications and More

OpenSource World Conference & Expo 2009 is the largest and most
comprehensive event for open source software and all things Linux. An
expansion of LinuxWorld Conference & Expo®, the conference presents the
latest Linux and open source ideas in a very technical context by
industry experts and innovators. OpenSource World focuses on real-world
solutions in real-world environments using open source, open standards
and open architecture as part of an integrated IT infrastructure.

The Mobile Conference at OpenSource World extends these themes into the
domain of mobile platforms and applications.  The Mobile Conference at
OpenSource World is divided into two tracks and welcomes submissions in
the following areas (and is open to your suggestions as well):

TRACK I – PLATFORMS

• Android, LiMo, Maemo, Moblin, OpenMoko and other Linux-based open source mobile platforms
• Open SymbianOS
• Shared Source around WindowsMobile
• Browsers and Browser-based platforms – Mozilla/Gecko, Webkit, Pre, etc.
• Open Source Java platforms
• Application Frameworks – GTK, Enlightenment, Qt, etc.
• Emerging form factors – MIDs, voice-enabled nettops, etc.
• State of key platforms technologies – power management,  multi-core support, virtualization, etc.
• Building and sustaining communities around mobile platforms
• Platform licensing choices and impact

TRACK II – MOBILE APPLICATIONS

• Mobile application development tools and techniques
• Comparing application frameworks and paradigms
• End-to-end applications development and deployment
• Enterprise mobile application development, rollout and management
• State of OSS applications technologies – VoIP, multimedia, etc.
• Content and content management with open source software
• Mobile application delivery
• Working with operators, application stores and other channels
• Licensing of mobile applications and content

Submit your speaking proposal TODAY online

Deadline for submissions is February 20, 2009

Guidelines

Focus proposals to offer attendees information, tools and inspiration to
accomplish mobile open source.  Please DO NOT focus proposals on a
commercial product or propose a marketing pitch, but rather open source
software and technology.

We look forward to your participation in OpenSource World 2009!

The Mobile Conference at LinuxWorld Program Committee

• Bill Weinberg, LinuxPundit.com
• Andreas Constantinou, VisionMobile.com
• Rick Lehrbaum, DeviceGuru.com

Intel announced today that the sultan of silicon will partner with the Taiwanese government and invest in the Republic’s IT industry to launch a Software Development Center for Open Source mobile devices.  Intel President and CEO Paul Otellini indicated that the company had inked a formal agreement with the Taiwan Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA).  Together, Intel and ROC ministry staff will establish a lab for enabling Intel’s Linux-based Moblin platform, as well as other open source software, targeting devices built around the Intel Atom processor.  Simultaneously, the company’s venture arm, Intel Capital, will invest NT$386M (US$11.5M) in Taiwanese carrier VMAX to support deployment of Taiwan’s first mobile WiMax network during 1H/2009.

This move by Intel has something in it for for everyone:  it benefits Intel, helping to consolidate the position of newly-minted mobile/embedded Atom CPUs.  It helps Taiwanese OEMs, who quickly launched Atom-based devices (many based on WindowsXP), but who are scrambling for availability of richer (and cheaper) Linux-based software stacks with more extensive localization and local value-added through software.  It’s a good deal for Taiwanese consumer, who’ll enjoy high-bandwidth wireless access together with blazing data and streaming media.  And the goodness ripples out across the Taiwan Straights and the Pacific Ocean and behond, since Taiwan-based rollouts of new ideas and gadgets open markets for cost-down, high-volume versions of the same technologies and devices off the island and over the horizon.

This double-whammy announcement gives hope to fans of the MID and mutes its critics – Intel is serious about the MID as more than a collection of empty sockets to fill.  Industry analysts project Atom-based MIDs will climb to worldwide shipments of 86M+ units by 2013. Certainly more potential than the beleaguered Linux desktop, and interesting volumes in their own right, but still a mere ripple in the global mobile pond when compared with today’s billion-plus volumes for 2.5/3G handsets.

Endowing the nascent MID class with a gushing fat WiMAX pipe, combined with software interoperability with desktop and server Linux, opens this converged platform to dizzying new possibilities. Milliwatt-consumption Atoms loaded with with Linux-based Moblin, connected to the Cloud via high speed WiMAX add charm and substance to Intel’s vision for MIDs.  I like the idea of long-lived, well-provisioned, connected mobile devices with always on, always available multimedia and social networking.

Now if only my middle-aged fingers were dexterous enough to use their tiny keyboards and my aging eyes were up to reading MIDs’ high resolution displays . . . I’ll leave that part to Generation MID.

Conspicuous by its absence in the announcement is the subject of VOICE.  Intel positions MIDs precisely as “Mobile Internet Devices”.  However, the MID form factor overlaps the spec and size for many of today’s 2,5G
and 3G smartphones (e.g., from Taiwanese HTC who build WindowsMobile handsets, and starting in October, Google/Android G1 devices). Moreover, WiMAX is not merely a WiFi replacement, but rather a
longer-haul WAN technology.  WiMAX is a technology that forms the backbone of announced 4G rollouts by carriers like Sprint, ClearWire, Packet 1, UQ and other Intel partners. So, developing open source
software for WiMAX-enabled MIDs could very well support a revolution not just in data and multimedia, but in voice-based communications. OSS-powered MIDs and WiMAX could extend today’s operator-licensed
paradigms or re-invent person-to-person communication with point-to-point voice and video over WiMAX and also the establishment of non-traditional operator networks – MVNOs with enterprise, academic and
community backing.