Press Releases

‘'Smooth as Silk' Transition from Proprietary RTOS to Embedded Linux

SUNNYVALE, Calif., October 29, 2001 - MontaVista Software Inc. today announced that GET Engineering Corporation has successfully converted to the Hard Hat® Linux® operating environment, porting from a proprietary RTOS platform to embedded Linux.

GET Engineering manufactures commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) Navy Tactical Data Systems (NTDS) products that are deployed in tactical applications of all classes of U.S. Naval and NATO vessels. The company produces interface adaptors and associated products including parallel and serial adaptors for PMC, ISA, PCI, VME and cPCI-based systems. GET’s customers include major defense and aerospace contractors such as Boeing, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin and BAE Systems.

Real-time performance from embedded operating systems is critical in military and aerospace applications. GET’s application involves time-sensitive routing and conversion of packets between NTDS and GET’s GETLink protocol. With Hard Hat Linux handling control plane operations (set up, fault and network management, etc.) over a data plane implemented in custom logic, the GET application was able to route packets in under 680 nanoseconds, with Hard Hat Linux responding to real-time management requests and other control plane events in well under one millisecond.

"MontaVista’s solution was cost effective and its technical support was excellent," said Robert Ruhe, chief executive officer of GET Engineering. "The transition was as smooth as silk and the resulting real-time response is more than adequate."

Time-to-market requirements are also important in the competitive military aerospace market. GET Engineering planned on a six-months-to-one-year development cycle to move from its proprietary RTOS to embedded Linux. With MontaVista’s proprietary RTOS to Hard Hat Linux transition kit, 90 percent of the APIs translated easily with no changes or additional work, and the project was completed in only two months. The product was immediately placed into GET’s customer service test site where it is successfully undergoing rigorous tests

About MontaVista’s Real-time Approach

MontaVista's hard real-time, fully preemptible kernel technology advances Linux to the responsiveness attributed to proprietary kernel products. It does so while still providing all the benefits of open source, including rapid development and deployment based on a royalty-free model. The Hard Hat Linux preemptible kernel improves real-time application response from hundreds of milliseconds (worst case) to less than one millisecond.

Montavista’s Legacy RTOS to Embedded Linux Tool Kits

MontaVista’s legacy RTOS-to-Linux transition kits streamline the porting of legacy code to embedded Linux. With the MontaVista tools, developers can reap the benefits of moving to a full-featured, open-source platform without the massive engineering burden usually associated with such a move.

About GET Engineering Corporation

GET Engineering Corporation was founded in 1981 as a leading edge, high technology engineering firm providing Naval Tactical Data Systems (NTDS) products to government and industrial clients. GET is a privately held corporation that participates in a global market and has experienced double digit growth over the past several years. The company has several key business areas consisting of a balance between COTS, NTDS related products and Research/Development (R&D) services, to approximately 150 customers in the Department of Defense and the commercial contractor community. The corporate headquarters are located in San Diego with nine indirect sales offices. For more information call (619) 443 8295 or visit www.getntds.com.

About MontaVista Software, Inc.

MontaVista Software, Inc. powers the embedded revolution by providing open-source systems software solutions for embedded developers. Founded in 1999 by real-time operating system (RTOS) pioneer James Ready, MontaVista's principal products include Hard Hat® Linux®, a Linux-based embedded source and binary distribution, cross development platform and a set of tool kits for x86/IA-32, PowerPC, StrongARM, MIPS, SH, ARM, XScale and other microprocessor architectures. MontaVista offers developers a family of products and services for embedded design and development targeted for applications ranging from communications infrastructure to thin-client and consumer devices. MontaVista Software also provides several technology add-on products addressing specific customer needs such as the Java Development environment, High Availability technology, powerful graphics toolkits and more.

Headquartered in the heart of Silicon Valley, in Sunnyvale, California, MontaVista Software is a privately held company funded by leading investors such Alloy Ventures, US Venture Partners, RRE Ventures, WR Hambrecht + Co., and Intel Capital. For more information about MontaVista, please visit http://www.mvista.com, email to info@mvista.com or call (408) 328-9200.

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

Contacts:

GET Engineering

Wally Moeller
Director of Sales
(619) 443 8295
wmoeller@getntds.com

MontaVista Software

Joe Samagond
Director, Marketing & Corp. Communications
(408) 328-9234
jsamagond@mvista.com

Patricia Colby
PR Strategy & Business Dev.
Pacifico, Inc.
(408) 293-8600, ext. 340
pcolby@pacifico.com