Linux At The Gate

Over the past six months, nearly every major consumer-electronics vendor has developed plans to create home products running Linux to ensure product innovation and prevent another Microsoft market monopoly. At the same time, digital integrators are developing their own Linux-based home solutions, which often lead to higher margins and significant savings for their customers.

"Other operating systems are many hundreds of dollars more expensive, plus you have the incremental costs when new versions come out, and you have maintenance fees," says Ken Fuhrman, president of Westminster, Colo.-based Interact-TV, which makes the Linux-based Telly line of home entertainment servers. "Linux will have a much lower cost in the long term."

Linux also frees vendors and integrators from the reign of any single software vendor. "Fundamentally, having choice is a very attractive business proposition," says Scott Smyers, vice president of the Network and Systems Architecture Division at Sony Electronics and president of the steering committee of the Consumer Electronics Linux Forum, a consortium founded about a year ago to create a common standard of Linux requirements for CE devices. CELF now has more than 75 members, including Sony, Toshiba, Samsung Electronics, Royal Philips Electronics, Hewlett-Packard, Panasonic, Hitachi, NEC and IBM.

This platform-agnostic approach can ease CE device development and provide cost savings. Manufacturers and integrators have a wide pool of tools and software at their fingertips, as opposed to relying on support from vendors peddling proprietary OSes. Plus, it's easy to find developers to assist in particular projects. Linux supporters also point to its security, stability and networking strengths, which are important for always-on, networked CE devices.

Another key benefit of Linux is that integrators and vendors can access the complete code. "If you have access to enough of the source code, you can control your own destiny," says Dave Pederson, vice president of corporate marketing at Zoran, a provider of solutions-on-a-chip for applications in the CE market. "We can fix it ourselves."

Members of the growing Linux movement ultimately hope to prevent Microsoft from dominating the home market. The Redmond, Wash., software giant envisions almost every device in the home running Windows and every home with a PC running Windows Media Center Edition. Most vendors have developed some type of strategy to work with Microsoft, but they are also creating devices that run embedded Linux and other OSes to serve unique purposes.

To add backbone to the battle, CELF expects to release the first formal specification for CE Linux standards next month. The specification will also allow for an Instant On capability and standards to improve memory and power management. The CE vendors that have been crafting and designing products around Linux remain tight-lipped about future product announcements, but a flood of Linux products are expected in the United States in the next 18 months.

One of the most well-known Linux products available is the Philips iPronto remote control. Philips, Atlanta, will be launching several Linux-based products in the next 12 months for its remote-control line and its overall Connected Planet strategy of networked home products, says Rein Hintzen, Philips product manager for the iPronto.

Motorola, Schaumburg, Ill., is selling a Linux-based residential gateway in the United States that runs Linux software from Montavista, a Sunnyvale, Calif.-based vendor that provides embedded Linux for CE and other devices. The gateway is also sold through Shell as its HomeGenie home management solution. Numerous wireless routers and access points run Linux, including some from Linksys and Buffalo Technology. The majority of set-top boxes and DVRs, including TiVo, run Linux.

Also available in the United States is the Sony RoomLink, which sits on top of Sony Vaio PCs and streams content to networked devices. Meanwhile, Sharp and NEC are selling media servers in Asia that run Linux. In the United States, HP unveiled a digital media receiver and Samsung debuted the Home Media Center. Toshiba also developed a media server running Linux with assistance from Zoran and longtime Windows ally Intel.

While the Linux product avalanche gathers steam among vendors, integrators are also using the OS to develop their own solutions. Custom Home Control, Temecula, Calif., uses the Windows Media Center platform for many high-end installations but is increasingly using Linux for the lower end. "You don't have to buy a PC; just put it [Linux] on a Web chip," says President Max Greene, adding that a complete Linux-based automation system could be installed using embedded Linux devices for less than $500, far below the cost of a Windows-based system.

Integrators are also using off-the-shelf Linux products and applications for developing home and SMB solutions. Paul Sullivan, president of Roaring Fork Valley, Colo.-based integrator Computer Net Services, says his company installs the Linux-based Nitix product line from Toronto-based vendor Network Integration Technologies as an e-mail, Web and file server for SOHO customers. "I needed something more robust and reliable than Windows,"

Sullivan says. "Customers are hearing more and more about it, especially with IBM advertising it on TV. When they hear IBM selling it, they think it must be mainstream stuff."

Linux, however, must overcome several weaknesses. Only a limited number of consumer applications run on it, while many run on Windows. Another serious challenge is that consumers are used to the Windows interface. So for Linux to compete, vendors must make an interface that's as easy to use. Meeting that challenge is one of the driving forces behind the Linux movement. But with the CE industry's wide commitment to using Linux, these challenges may be overcome as vendors and integrators strive to create a connected home that even a penguin could love.