Firm readies embedded Linux software for growing information-appliance market

Software firm Tuxia predicts the market for Internet-ready information appliances will take off this year as Asian-made WebPads, set-top boxes and screen phones hit the market worldwide with the firm's embedded Linux operating system.

The German company's growing number of original equipment manufacturing (OEM) clients in Taiwan are poised to make information appliances available throughout Asia, the United States and Europe this year.

'Although there is no set operating standard in the information appliance market, we are optimistic our embedded Linux software, Taste, will be a major player and influence consumers and enterprises to adopt these Internet-ready devices,' said co-founder and chief executive Hannes Eisele.

Established last year, Tuxia develops and markets the Taste (Tuxia appliance synthesis technology enabled) brand of embedded Linux software.

Taste features an optimised flash-compression technology to fit a minimum amount of memory into information appliances.

'Linux is the operating system of choice for popular new information appliances because it is fast, reliable and uses much less memory than competing operating systems,' Mr Eisele said.