Corel Computer Corp, the hardware division of Corel Computer Inc is returning the source code to its Linux operating system to the Linux community for evaluation and development. Corel plans to use the code in its forthcoming network computer products, due to be announced any day. The move is in line with the current vogue: Netscape Communications Corp last month posted the source code of Communicator 5.0 on its mozilla.org site for similar treatment. The idea of a Video NC, which was the original name of the company’s product, has remained just that, an idea. It is now a corporate mission within the company and has been replaced by the NetWinder family of Linux and Java- based NCs. The Linux machine is in the late stages of testing with a few potential customers and Corel is taking orders in small quantities. Corel started with a Linux kernel based on Red Hat Software Inc’s version of the OS running on Advanced RISC Machines Ltd’s ARM RISC processor that had been ported by a Linux developer in the UK, Russell King. Corel then ported it to the StrongARM processor, which is a combination of work between ARM and Digital Equipment Corp, but has now been taken under the wing of Intel Corp, which signed a deal with DEC to develop and manufacture the processor. Both the Linux and Java NCs will run off a 233MHz StrongARM part. The Linux boxes are to be offered in various configurations. The NetWinder WS is a turnkey web server; the LC is meant as a desktop or a server (it has a 3Gb hard drive); and the DM is a development machine pre-packaged with Corel development tools, again with a 3Gb hard drive. The Java machine, called the NetWinder JC, also runs on the Linux operating system, but with the addition of Corel’s port of Sun Microsystems Inc’s Java virtual machine and DEC’s Just-in-Time (JIT) Java compiler. Corel wrote the user interface – it had plenty of practice with its aborted Office for Java effort. The company is trying a couple of different sales tactics. It will attempt to sell them through OEMs in specific vertical markets and is also building a direct sales force in major US cities. In order to run Windows applications, Corel went to Olivetti for a product called VNC (no relation to Corel’s Video NC) that does remote windowing and enables the machine to run X applications. The jBridge thin client technology, codenamed Remagen, does not feature on these machines as Corel wants to avoid trying to convince companies already using technology such as Citrix Systems Inc’s ICA that it should switch to Corel’s alternative. And anyhow, jBridge is part of Corel Corp, not the hardware division, reasons the company. Corel also acknowledged that there is a dearth of suitable Java applications for it to run on that machine at the moment, which could well prove something of a hurdle. Expect the pure Linux machine first, followed shortly after by the Java box. The company could not be pinned down to a definite date.
