Press Releases

Many Next Generation Samsung Devices Will Run on MontaVista Linux

SEOUL, South Korea and SUNNYVALE, Calif., August 11, 2003 — Samsung Electronics Co. (KSE:05930.KS), Ltd., a leader in advanced consumer electronics, and MontaVista Software Inc., the company powering the embedded revolution, today announced the signing of a corporate-wide contract to use MontaVista® Linux®, an industry standard Linux platform, in Samsung’s advanced electronics devices. After a long and thorough analysis, MontaVista Software has been chosen as the preferred embedded Linux supplier to Samsung Electronics.

“MontaVista Linux is being used by world-class consumer electronics manufacturers primarily due to its high performance, real-time capability and service reliability,” said Mr. Young K. Choe, vice president, Samsung Electronics. “We expect this contract with MontaVista will contribute to Samsung Electronics’ timely development and placement of products and technology for devices with embedded Linux.”

The Linux operating system continues to gain popularity due to its support for a variety of platforms, exceptional stability, powerful network functionalities and royalty-free license policy. To share the Linux’ inherent merits with its customers, Samsung Electronics has chosen MontaVista Linux as an operating system for some of its future digital product lines and has accepted MontaVista Software as one of its worldwide partners. Samsung will benefit from the extensive software tools and expert development support provided by the MontaVista cross development environment solution. The agreement between the two companies covers all three product editions of MontaVista Linux – Professional Edition, Carrier Grade Edition and Consumer Electronics Edition.

“We are very pleased that Samsung Electronics, a leading global supplier of electronics devices, has selected MontaVista Linux to develop and deploy its next generation products,” said Jim Ready, president and CEO, MontaVista Software. “With our proven and versatile OS and development environment, MontaVista can act as a catalyst and enabler as we move toward standards for the use of Linux in digital products.”

Samsung Electronics is an Appointed member and serves on the Steering Committee of the Consumer Electronics Linux Forum (CELF), a consortium of companies to promote the use of the Linux platform for digital consumer electronics devices. MontaVista Software today announced (http://www.mvista.com/news/2003/celf.html) that it has also become a member of CELF. MontaVista strongly endorses the goals of the Forum and is committed to supporting standards developed by this group in its own future consumer-related products.

About MontaVista Linux
MontaVista Software provides a family of products to facilitate and accelerate the development process for software developers today who are building a range of end-user products in a wide variety of markets. MontaVista Linux is the umbrella that encompasses all MontaVista Software products.

MontaVista Linux Professional Edition
This industry-leading comprehensive embedded operating system and cross development environment is MontaVista Software’s flagship product. It provides a common source and binary platform across a broad range of processor architectures. The Professional Edition includes a modern OS featuring real-time functionality, multi-process and multi-threaded with extensive bundled software components including rich networking.

MontaVista Linux Carrier Grade Edition
This innovative product is the industry standard COTS (Commercial-Off-The-Shelf) Carrier Grade Linux platform providing functionality specifically for Telecom and Datacom with high availability, hardening and real-time performance.

MontaVista Linux Consumer Electronics Edition
The latest addition to MontaVista Software’s product line is the world’s first embedded Linux product targeted at advanced consumer electronics devices. It combines new functionality and tools with rich support of reference platforms to enable the rapid development of a wide range of consumer electronics products.

About Samsung Electronics
Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. is a global leader in semiconductor, telecommunication, and digital convergence technology. Samsung Electronics employs approximately 75,000 people in 89 offices in 47 countries. The company is the world's largest producer of memory chips, TFT-LCDs, CDMA mobile phones, monitors and VCRs. Samsung Electronics consists of four main business units: Digital Media Network, Device Solution Network, Telecommunication Network and Digital Appliance Network Businesses. For more information, please visit http://www.samsung.com

About MontaVista Software
MontaVista Software is a leading global supplier of systems software for intelligent connected devices and associated infrastructure. MontaVista powers the embedded revolution by providing GNU/Linux-based open-source software solutions. Founded in 1999 by real-time operating system (RTOS) pioneer James Ready, MontaVista offers a family of products under the MontaVista Linux umbrella that address broad-based software developer needs encompassing applications ranging from communications infrastructure to consumer electronics. Multiple editions of MontaVista Linux are available including Professional, Consumer Electronics and Carrier Grade, along with complementary technology products providing powerful Java and graphics development capabilities.

Headquartered in the heart of Silicon Valley, in Sunnyvale, Calif., MontaVista Software is a privately held company funded by leading investors such as Alloy Ventures, US Venture Partners, RRE Ventures, WR Hambrecht + Co., IBM, Intel Capital, Sony, Panasonic (Matsushita), Toshiba America and Yamaha Corporation. For more information about MontaVista Software, please visit http://www.mvista.com.

Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. MontaVista is a registered trademark of MontaVista Software, Inc. All other names mentioned are trademarks, registered trademarks or service marks of their respective companies.

Contacts:

MontaVista Software
Joe Samagond
Director of Marketing and Corporate Communications
MontaVista Software
Phone (408) 328-9234
E-mail: jsamagond@mvista.com

Patricia Colby
PR Strategy and Business Development
Pacifico, Inc.
Phone: (408) 293 8600 x340
E-mail: pcolby@pacifico.com

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.
Jun Yim
Corporate Communications Team
Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.
Tel: 82-2-727-7848
Fax: 82-2-727-7851
E-mail: junseok.yim@samsung.com