Citing “the impact of the economic downturn that has prevailed since March”, Lineo reduced its headcount again this week and continued the process begun last Fall of narrowing its focus to three key target markets. According to CEO Matt Harris, the company is reducing its size from 138 employees to between 75 and 80. Harris said that revenues from services and royalties during Q1 2002 are up sharply, more than doubling that of Q4 2001, and that the current backlog exceeds $5M of scheduled services and license revenues, but that the changes are required to achieve profitability by mid-2002.

Last September, the company announced a restructuring which included the reduction of 60 employees and an expected spinout of an additional 100, which was to leave Lineo with approximately 110 employees. The company also had a layoff in June 2001, at which time it reduced its workforce by 13%, from 322 to 280.

According to Harris, Lineo is now sharply tuned to three key embedded market segments: handheld devices (including PDAs and smart handsets); edge devices (residential gateways, firewalls, routers, etc.); and digital TV (set-top boxes and entertainment systems). Harris explained that in order to best focus on the defined target markets and required core technologies, the company's resources are being organized into three cross-functional teams, each with responsibility for engineering, marketing, and business development activities in its specific area of assignment. The three teams are designated: smart handheld devices; edge devices and DTV; and core technologies and tools.

“Currently one of our key initiatives is to build OpenPDA.net, which will provide a supporting infrastructure for smart handhelds built around our 'Embedix Plus PDA' platform, an open standards platform based on Linux,” said Harris. “We expect to launch OpenPDA.net in 4-5 weeks and expect significant OEM support when it launches.” Sharp's Zaurus and Infomart's Kaii PDAs use Lineo's “Embedix Plus PDA” software stack, which includes Lineo's Embedix, Trolltech's Qtopia and Qt/Embedded, Opera's browser, and Insignia's Jeode JVM. The new website site will provide resources for use by both developers and end users of devices that are based on Embedix Plus PDA software stack.

 
This article was originally published on LinuxDevices.com and has been donated to the open source community by QuinStreet Inc. Please visit LinuxToday.com for up-to-date news and articles about Linux and open source.