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Motorola's Metrowerks Acquires Lineo

Posted by timothy on from the can't-you-build-some-linux-watches-already dept.

An anonymous reader writes "It's official: Following weeks of speculation, Motorola's Metrowerks embedded tools subsidiary today has finally announced that they are acquiring the key assets of Embedix Inc. (a.k.a. Lineo), one of the earliest and most popular providers of embedded Linux software and tools."

5 of 93 comments (clear)

  1. Sounds suspicious ... by obsidianpreacher · · Score: 3, Interesting
    "Customers want a full solution, up to the application level, from a single source," [Metrowerks vice president of strategic marketing John] Smolucha added.
    Does this sound a little like the Microsoft/Disney/AOLTW/whoever monopolistic practices to anyone else, or am I just being overly cynical and reading too much into it? How does this fit into the whole free (as in speech) aspect of the Linux developmental ideology?
    --
    topreacher@signature.slashdot.org 1% rm -rf sig
  2. might be good by binary+tr011 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This might be good as it would allow a great technology(embedded linux) to gain more market share.
    Also it will allow for a great chip manufature motorola and os to come together.
    redundant

  3. holy crap I cant believe it... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I used to work for a company that is now out of business that used to compete against both of these companies.

    Lineo was the only company to come close to what we were doing in terms of execution speed and compatibility. It just boggles the mind that they sold out.

    Though the company I was working for is now out of business, thanks to a very stupid CEO..

  4. Not good news, for now anyway... by USC-MBA · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Sadly, this does not amount to very good news. The Metrowerks acquisition comes only eight months after Lineo was forced to recapitalize (translation: they were broke), which itself came only a month after Lineo laid off over a third of its workforce. For one of the first and best-known embedded Linux companies to go under like this does not shine a good light on the industry.

    Meanwhile, a glance at Metrowerks website shows the company leaning strongly toward PDA applications, the market for which has been slumping as of late, and, as Gartner Dataquest's analysis tells it:

    PDAs are entering a period in which they will be embraced by enterprises as core infrastructure, like PCs.This portends a gradual shift away from Palm and toward Microsoft. Although Palm devices remain more prevalent in enterprises, Microsoft has been adept in providing the building blocks enterprises require. Most companies Gartner talks with are moving with, or planning to move with, the Microsoft wave.
    Note that the idea of Microsoft getting a leg up in "core infrastructure" integration means that the company also poses a threat to embedded applications for such "smart devices" as portable phones and videoconferencing technology.

    Though the overall outlook may seem bleak for these companies, a winner is someone who can look a challenge and see an opportunity. As a libertarian, I am anti-monolpoly, and thus I hope Metrowerks' leadership can show the kind of vision needed to put Lineo's intellectual capital to good use in counteracting the Microsoft menace.

  5. Re:Does that mean no more codewarrior? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    ::flails away with large clue-stick::

    Codewarrior has NOTHING to do with GNU.

    - It was made pretty much from scratch by Metrowerks until Motorola bought them. (IOW, it has always been "proprietary".)

    - It has always had a EULA. (It's not GPL'ed.)

    It was originally just another Pascal compiler for Macintosh. Yes, the crappy old 68k Macs with the hack-job System n(where n is a fixed-point, one-place-after-the-decimal number less than 8). It was made into a frontend/backend IDE/plugin loader compiler with support for languages other than Pascal, most notably C++.

    It became the de facto standard for Mac programming because Apple hadn't updated their MPW tools in years and Metrowerks updated for the PPC. (Yeah, that kind of "de facto" - the ubiquitous, Microsoft kind. Name a C++ compiler in widespread use for Windows development... now name one other than Visual C++. See?)

    Codewarrior was the only decent way to make console apps for the Macintosh until MacOS X came out. CW has a thing called "SIOUX" - Simple Input/Output User eXchange" - a.k.a. a text console window. It worked pretty well, but things like system() were defined as:
    void system(void *blah)
    {
    return 0;
    }
    You can see where that plan goes tits up... I believe they've updated their libraries to use OSX now, and give an error in HackOS 9.

    The only thing you got right about Codewarrior is that it is overpriced. WAY overpriced. It retails for $400, and there's no upgrade path. It's $400 for CW Pro 5. 6 months later, CW Pro 6 comes out... another $400 if you want it. Lather, rinse, repeat.

    All that having been said, it has a nice IDE... :)