Transmeta Partners to Push Linux in China
Transmeta, a designer of lower power CPUs based in the
US, has partnered with Chinese 2000 Holdings to push Linux
in the China market.
Chinese 2000 Holdings is run by Hong Kong firms eForce
and Culturecom. It is a developer of Chinese language
Linux software which can run along with Windows desktop
systems.
The agreement will allow Chinese 2000 to push research
and sales using Midori, Transmeta's version of the Linux
operating system, for mobile- and chip-embedded devices
in the China and other Asia-Pacific markets. Until very
recently, Linus Torvalds, the lead developer of the Linux
system, worked at Transmeta.
Transmeta was founded to develop a combined hardware/software
solution to power CPUs and reduce power consumption. It
has a staff of 300 worldwide, and its revenues fell last
year to US$24.2 million from $35.6 million in 2001. It
chips are manufactured by TSMC.
China has its own officially supported version of Linux
called Red Flag Linux, which is used in many government
agencies and ministries. Originally, Microsoft had a very
positive image in China until one of its China general
managers, Wu Shihong, left and wrote an insider's tell-all
about the company which was very critical of the company.
Since then, China users have been much less positive about
Microsoft. Many China users are put off by the high license
fees for Microsoft software. As a result, more and more
agencies, ministries and companies are switching to Linux,
not only on servers, but on the desktop as well.
Among China's software developers, Linux has long been
popular because it is free, and because they can modify
the source code to suit their needs.
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