“Growing support for Linux on the desktop, server and in
embedded systems has encouraged producers of microprocessors to
consider Linux during product development and research. Major chip
manufacturers and distributors have begun forging alliances and
creating new collaborations to capitalize upon this growing demand.
Linux is being touted as a target operating system for numerous
processor producers as its benefits have become more widely
understood. Cost, in addition to configurability and scalability,
have helped Linux to gain the momentum necessary to coordinate
development with processor manufacturers.“
“Intel Corp. (NASD:INTC) announced earlier in May that it would
be releasing the micro-architecture specifications of its Itanium
processor. This move, unusual given Intel’s proprietary nature, is
intended to encourage developers and compilers to maximize the
potential of Intel’s IA-64 architecture. Intel’s efforts, embraced
wholeheartedly by the open source movement, may not be as unselfish
as it seems, though, as the collaborators will undoubtedly maximize
the products potential without an enormous outlay of expense by
Intel. As a whole, this is an enormous step forward in the
mainstreaming of Linux and should benefit both open source
development and Intel. The Itanium 64-bit processor is scheduled
for release in the second half of this year.”
“The new processor, which requires a new operating system to
run, has been adopted by Microsoft (NASD: MSFT), an effort which
required the company to port Windows 2000 to the new chip. Linux
has been placed in the forefront, though, as a collaboration of
open source vendors has already released source code for Itanium
under a collaboration entitled The Trillian Project. The project
includes: Caldera Systems (NASD: CALD), Cygnus Solutions (NASD:
RHAT), Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HWP), IBM (NYSE: IBM), Intel (NASD:
INTC), Red Hat (NASD: RHAT), SGI (NYSE: SGI), SERN (private), SuSe
(private), TurboLinux (private) and VA Linux (NASD: LNUX). Trillian
will most likely be utilized in scientific, educational, technical
and research markets initially. Caldera, SuSe and Red Hat intend to
ship Trillian with the processor. TurboLinux is already shipping a
working version and IBM, SGI and HP should have Trillian based
servers by year-end.”