Press statement: MontaVista Linux powers Dell Latitude ON technology

 

VISION 2008, SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. – Oct. 2, 2008 – Rusty Harris, president and CEO of MontaVista Software, Inc., the leader in embedded Linux commercialization, revealed today in his keynote address at the Vision 2008 Embedded Linux Developers Conference that MontaVista is working with Dell Inc. as the software technology provider and systems integrator to build the complete software stack for the forthcoming Dell Latitude ON technology based on MontaVista Linux.

This joint development project between Dell and MontaVista is an example of how thousands of manufacturers and designers of smart devices use MontaVista Linux to design and build innovative new products.

About Dell Latitude ON technology

Dell Latitude ON technology was announced by Dell in an August 12, 2008 press release headlined Dell Takes Business Laptops to New Latitudes. Below is the description of Dell Latitude ON from the press release:

Access E-mail Instantly, Without Booting the OS

The company also previewed Dell Latitude ON, a new technology that will enable near-instant access to e-mail, calendar, attachments, contacts and the Web without booting into the system’s main operating system (OS). Expected in the coming months on the Latitude E4200 and E4300, Dell Latitude ON uses a dedicated low-voltage sub-processor and OS that can enable multi-day battery life.

The full text of the August 12 press release is available here.

 

On August 12; Lionel Menchaca, chief blogger of Dell, described Dell Latitude ON this way: “Another cool option that will be available on both the Latitude E4200 and E4300 in the coming months is something called Dell Latitude ON. It is an application that gives you access to your e-mail, contacts, calendar, attachments and the Internet without the need to boot into the system’s main OS. The Dell Latitude ON mode will enable multi-day battery life since it utilizes a dedicated low-voltage sub-processor and operating system.”

In a press conference, also on August 12, Dell executives described Dell Latitude ON in these words:

“It is a standalone secondary processor and its own operating system, and it allows us because of that to bypass the host CPU and the host OS to give this notion of ‘always-on’ and instant access. We can use the capacity of these large batteries—which if any of you have a cell phone, compare this [large laptop] battery to that [small cell phone] battery—that will allow us to have huge capacity to allow this to operate multiple days on a single charge in that mode. … We really think this is a notion of revolutionizing how people use business laptops.”

“Now you have a notebook, where you have a big keyboard, a big screen, you can consume and create content, but you can instantly access your data. By the time you lift your screen up, you’re looking at your contact list, or your email, or your schedule, or whatever the case may be, and yet by doing that I don’t impact battery life, I actually go the other way around. I now take what used to be many, many hours of battery life and I turn it into days of battery life. That’s the experience we’re creating with this. And it’s not a piece of software. It’s a fully-dedicated subsystem that was really designed specifically for these tasks in mind.”

About MontaVista Software

MontaVista Linux has helped developers design and build innovative new products since 1999. With products like Motorola mobile phones, Yamaha digital musical instruments, Sony Bravia televisions and other consumer devices, medical devices, automobile infotainment systems, and now Dell Latitude ON technology all running on MontaVista Linux, the benefits and strengths of Linux are clear, and the quality and tools of MontaVista Linux specifically have made it the multi-industry leader in embedded operating system (OS) software that it is today.

MontaVista Software, Inc. is the leader in embedded Linux commercialization. MontaVista helps embedded developers get the most out of open source by adding commercial quality, integration, hardware enablement, expert support, and the resources of the MontaVista development community. Because MontaVista customers enjoy faster time to market, more competitive device functionality, and lower total cost, more devices have been deployed with MontaVista than with any other Linux. To learn more, please visit www.mvista.com. For information on the Vision 2008 Embedded Linux Developers Conference Oct. 1-3, visit www.mvista.com/vision

Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in the United States and other countries. MontaVista is a registered trademark of MontaVista Software, Inc. All other names mentioned are trademarks, registered trademarks or service marks of their respective owners.