Emerson Network Power's embedded computing business (formerly Artesyn Communications Products) will employ an engineering team dedicated specifically to supporting MontaVista's Carrier Grade Linux (CGL) OS on Emerson's telecom blades and systems. The team will be available to port, test, certify, support, and Q/A customers' MontaVista deployments.

Emerson Network Power is a division of Emerson Electric. It sells wireless telecom infrastructure products, in addition to CATV, audio/video, network wiring, test/measurement equipment, and military/aerospace equipment. In April of 2006, Emerson Network Power merged with Artesyn Communications — then the third-largest U.S. TEM (telecommunications equipment manufacturer). Subsequently, Artesyn became Emerson Network Power's “Embedded Computing” group.

Today, the Embedded Computing group announced that an unspecified number of staff will support MontaVista Linux Carrier Grade Edition on Emerson's telecom-oriented systems and blades. The group will be available to Emerson customers to port MontaVista Linux to new Emerson hardware. The group will also support the resulting ports, write device drivers, do quality-assurance and testing work, and perform work needed in order to contribute enhancements back to the open source community.

Emerson said it will work closely with MontaVista itself, to avail customers of the latest patches and updates, as well as early access to new releases. In its announcement today, Emerson called MontaVista Linux “the most widely deployed commercial carrier Linux solution in the market today.”

Kim Anderberg, VP of marketing for Emerson's Embedded Computing business, stated, “Linux is emerging as the dominant platform for high-availability network infrastructure products. Our new MontaVista support team will enable us to offer our customers early access to the latest MontaVista Carrier Grade Edition releases.”

Availability

Emerson's MontaVista team will initially support both MontaVista 3.1 and 4.0, which Emerson customers are expected to purchase directly from MontaVista. The newest Pro 5.0 version of MontaVista — claimed to offer significant enhancements for small-footprint and real-time deployments — has not yet appeared in Carrier Grade form, but presumably will also be supported when it reaches market.

Initially supported hardware will include Emerson's PowerPC-based KatanaQp and PmPPC7448 products, which have long supported both MontaVista and Wind River Linux.

 
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