MontaVista Toasts 10 Years in the Embedded Linux Business

MontaVista Software has celebrated its tenth year in business as a provider of embedded Linux solutions.

MontaVista officials announced the company's 10-year anniversary on July 13. Company founder and Chief Technology Officer Jim Ready started MontaVista in 1999 with the mission to bring the full advantage of open-source Linux to the embedded market.

Since then the company has remained committed to furthering the development and innovation of commercialized embedded Linux by enabling a broad range of architectures, delivering commercial quality and expanding the tools available for embedded developers, MontaVista officials said. As a result of this focus and commitment, there are more than 60 million devices in the market powered by MontaVista Linux today, the company said.

“At the time the company was founded, the market was highly fragmented, comprised of many proprietary embedded real-time operating system offerings. I founded MontaVista with the goal of bringing the full benefits of open-source Linux to embedded developers,” Ready said in a statement. “People said we were crazy, but we quickly proved otherwise, and today Linux has become the OS of choice for new embedded device designs.”

Stephen Balacco, director of the Embedded Software and Tools Practice at VDC Research Group, said, “MontaVista has been a pioneer over the last 10 years in the embedded software market with their Linux product and support offerings. In an ever-changing competitive landscape they are a trusted supplier, constant innovator and contributor to embedded Linux and the open-source community. This has helped foster and accelerate the adoption of Linux as an embedded operating system for new embedded product designs.”

Among the many milestones and company firsts for MontaVista include that in 2005 the company announced MontaVista Linux Carrier Grade Edition 4.0, a groundbreaking carrier grade Linux distribution. MontaVista Linux Carrier Grade Edition has demonstrated 99.99999 percent uptime.

Another high point came in 2006 when MontaVista Linux reached the milestone of being deployed in 40 million devices, and provided support for 70 processors and 230 boards, which was greater than any other Linux provider. Then in 2009, MontaVista announced MontaVista Linux 6, a new approach to embedded Linux development, and Meld, a community for embedded Linux developers.

In addition to Meld, also in 2009, MontaVista announced support for the Moblin Linux stack. Moblin is an open source project focused on building a Linux-based platform optimized for the next generation of mobile devices including netbooks, Mobile Internet Devices, and in-vehicle infotainment systems.

Meanwhile, regarding some of its "firsts," MontaVista also launched the first commercial embedded Linux for x86, the first Linux for consumer devices, the first Linux for carrier grade equipment, and is the first and only Linux vendor to provide Carrier Grade Linux (CGL) 4.0, Linux Standard Base (LSB) 3.0 and IPv6 certification, the company said.