Linux usage surging

Many attendants at last week's Embedded Systems Conference in San Jose were surprised by the many signs that Linux is surpassing even optimistic projections concerning the open-source system's success in the marketplace. Dell Computer, for example, uses Linux on almost 4 percent of its desktop products today, matching Apple Computer's Macintosh figures, and one study says use of embedded Linux tool platforms rose from 1 percent to 14 percent in the last year.

At the ESC, Motorola announced its purchase of 3 million shares of embedded Linux company Lineo Inc., and Samsung Electronics and Samsung Electro-Mechanics announced joint ventures in Korea with Lineo. Samsung's System LSI Business announced a million-dollar contract to Red Hat Inc. and LynuxWorks Inc. announced it had integrated Microsoft's Visual C++ integrated development environment with its Linux-based development tools. In a related story, VA Linux Systems and Sumitomo are working together to proselytize Linux to the Japanese market.

For more about the conference, read eet.com and/or linuxdevices.com. For more on the Japanese effort, see news.com.