MontaVista Software, the maker of Hard Hat Linux for embedded systems, today announced the opening of its European headquarters. The office, which will be located in Paris, will serve as a base of operations for MontaVista's European and other non-North American sales and support activities.

Brian Grega, vice president of business development and wordwide sales, says MontaVista will staff the new European office with a team of 15-20 over the next few months, with an intention of covering France, United Kingdom, Germany, and the Nordic countries. That effort, if successful, will prepare the company to promote and support Hard Hat Linux in Europe by the Fall, the time when European design activities are typically peaking.

Stephane Deruelle, formerly of Wind River Systems, joins MontaVista as director for Southern European sales. “In my 10 years in the industry I have not seen such a strong entry into the embedded systems field,” says Deruelle. “I am very excited to join in the embedded Linux revolution, and to lead the charge into Southern Europe for MontaVista.”

MontaVista's Hard Hat Linux is based on off-the-shelf Linux kernel and software components and is 100 percent open source and royalty free. The company recently announced a new real-time scheduler for Linux and is taking a lead in demonstrating that standard, off-the-shelf Linux can take the place of traditional embedded RTOS software in mission critical applications. MontaVista was founded by embedded RTOS pioneer Jim Ready.

 
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