Research Triangle Park, NC — Red Hat, Inc. announced that it has begun shipping its new developer tools and services for the embedded Linux market. Red Hat says the Embedded DevKit (EDK) is intended to satisfy the demand for open source software and tools in the growing embedded space, which includes Internet appliances and handhelds.

The Red Hat EDK provides an integrated development environment (IDE) to deliver software developers everything needed to quickly and easily create embedded Linux applications on a wide spectrum of pervasive computing platforms. The targeted markets include manufacturers who are building Internet infrastructure appliances and consumer Internet appliances, as well as the traditional telecom, datacom, industrial, and embedded applications markets.

“We are providing embedded Linux tools and services that can serve a broad base of embedded developers, regardless of their budget, and are scaling our services so that we can provide comprehensive support for the most demanding of customers,” says Michael Tiemann, chief technical officer, Red Hat. “The Red Hat EDK offering leverages the success of our current service and support offerings for Linux, and is the next step in our vision to make Linux a pervasive computing standard.”

Support Services

Red Hat promotes its premium support services as a key advantage to the Embedded DevKit. Red Hat Support customers can get assistance on how to use the Embedded DevKit and can receive responses to questions about embedded Linux. In addition, customers who submit problem reports on the EDK or kernel are entitled to priority response on updates.

Red Hat offers two types of premium support for EDK — Incident support for small workgroups, and Platinum Support for larger development teams. Incident packages provide the customer with priority response on a fixed number of requests. Platinum packages provide priority response on an unlimited number of requests, but are based on the number of software developers using the EDK.

What the DevKit includes

The Red Hat Embedded DevKit is a completely open source software package that includes the Source-Navigator IDE, with enhancements for embedded Linux development, along with the latest GNUPro compiler and debugger. The EDK is intended to offer Linux developers everthing they need to create and deploy applications for embedded x86 or PowerPC target systems. Specifically, it includes:

• The intuitive, Red Hat Source-Navigator IDE with automated make/build functionality
  
• Host development tools for testing code on the native platform using the Insight debugger
  
• GNUPro tools for x86 and PowerPC embedded development
  
• Basic Linux kernel functionality with configuration support.

The advantages of the Red Hat Embedded DevKit include:

• Simplification of Linux kernel configuration for an embedded system
  
• Easy download of the kernel with the customer application
  
• Rapid debugging of new application code or adapting pre-existing code to a new embedded target environment.
  
• Standardized GUI environment regardless of target platform chosen which minimizes learning curve for new projects
  
• Faster time to market than competing solutions

Pricing and Availability

Red Hat EDK support x86 and PowerPC platforms and are available to order now at www.redhat.com/store. The EDK packages are priced from $199 to $599 US List and include various levels of installation support and priority FTP service. Premium Support packages start at $12,500, and may be ordered by contacting Red Hat Sales at 1-888 REDHAT1 x500.

About Red Hat, Inc.

Founded in 1994, Red Hat is the market leader in open source Internet infrastructure software, services, and information, spanning powerful enterprise and Internet servers to next-generation devices and pervasive computing platforms. Along with its award-winning open source Red Hat Linux OS and embedded tools and software, Red Hat offers a full line of services, including telephone support, on-site consulting, developer training, certification programs and priority access updates, making Red Hat a leading resource for knowledgeable, innovative, mission-critical open source solutions. Red Hat is based in Research Triangle Park, N.C. and has offices worldwide.

 
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