Lars-Ake Lidstrom notes that Linux Today has posted a link to a story running on VNU Business Publications entitled "Cygnus develops open source OS to rival Windows CE". The Interactive Week published on 11Jan99 is also covering this story in an article written by Charles Babcock entitled "Free OS Aims to Get Embedded on Net." The real-time operating system (RTOS) in question is called "eCos" and it is being released by a company called Cygnus. Not only is this seen by analysts as an "attack" on Windows CE, but other RTOS companies like Wind River Systems and Microwave Systems could feel considerable impact in their licensing revenues.

Ruksun Software Technologies has announced that all their software titles for Windows CE have been ported to the Intel's StrongARM processor running the "Handheld PC Professional Edition OS" that is used in Hewlett-Packard's Jornada device.

Symbian (the joint venture between Psion, Nokia, Ericsson, and Motorola) has announced "acquisition" of Ericsson Mobile Communications' Mobile Applications Lab based in Ronneby, Sweden. All the staff will move to Symbian and this location will be the "EPOC development centre" for integrating communications into EPOC. Symbian's headquarters is in London, United Kingdom, and has offices in Kanazawa, Japan, and in the San Francisco Bay Area (California).

Margie Semilof at Computer Reseller News via Information Week Online has an article entitled "Microsoft's SkyTel Stake Could Boost Windows CE" that notes that Microsoft has invested enough into SkyTel (an alphanumeric paging company) to own 5.7%. Analysts see a possibility for future Windows CE integration with SkyTel for paging technology and services.

Pretec Electronics has announced the launch of 80MB (sampling now, shipping in Feb99) and 320MB (sampling in Q2'99) Compact Flash Type II (CF+) cards. The "drive" mechanism is IBM's recently announced "microdrive" family of storage devices. For more information about CompactFlash check out www.compactflash.org. Pretec is also building CF+ cards for doing "Fax/Modem, Ethernet LAN, Serial, Parallel, and IrDA."

Advanced Recognition Technologies (ART) has announced licensing their smARTspeak voice recognition and smARTwriter handwriting recognition technologies to Emultek, Ltd., a developer of embedded systems products being used by GE, Nokia, Motorola, AEG, Casio, Rockwell Collins, Raytheon, and BMW.

-Steve Holden (sholden@pencomputing.com)