Düsseldorf, Germany — (press release excerpt) — NEC Corporation announced today that its family of network controllers is now running MontaVista Linux. The availability of Linux as a platform on these next-generation controllers is regarded as an important step to further strengthen NEC's networking devices portfolio.

“There were three main reasons for NEC to select the Linux OS for its family of network controllers,” explained Bruno Faller, senior manager at NEC Electronics (Europe). “First, Linux is royalty-free, which gives our customers an important cost advantage. Second, there is a tremendous number of available applications written for Linux, which makes Linux one of the best-supported operating systems. And third, we believe that MontaVista Linux is one of the most powerful Linux development platforms available today and we are giving our customers the best foundation one can think of to realize their product features.”

MontaVista Linux for NEC's network controller is not limited to the kernel ported to the network controller platform, but is intended to offer a complete solution for all kinds of broadband access devices, such as routers, IADs (Integrated Access Devices), gateways, etc. This means that the drivers for the various interfaces of the network controllers (Ethernet USB, ATM, etc.) were optimized for performance and throughput. Besides that, a large suite of higher-level networking protocols, starting with TCP/IP and ranging up to PPPoA, and PPPoE, are available as well.

 
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