SnapGear, Red Hat Offer Turnkey Embedded Solutions

August 30, 2002 -- Firewall and VPN equipment developer SnapGear (SnapGear.com) announced on Friday that the company is collaborating with Linux developer Red Hat Inc. (RedHat.com) to develop a complete hardware and software embedded Linux solutions.

The arrangement, says SnapGear, gives customers a source for integrated hardware solutions. Currently, companies looking to develop in-house solutions encounter risks when building themselves. Design houses often tie customers to proprietary operating systems and large royalties.

"When you bring together Red Hat's knowledge of embedded Linux operating systems and ability to provide end-to-end services and support with Snap Gear's embedded hardware experience," says Red Hat VP of global services Tony Moretto, "you have a winning formula. Customers not only still have a single point of contact, but now have access to everything they need, from project conceptualization to product delivery."

The companies say that surveys demonstrate that Linux is moving into first place in 2002 for embedded application development because of its stability, code maturity, abundance of application code and simplified pricing model.

"We've been involved with embedded Linux for several years and our kernel engineers have made large contributions to the deeply embedded space," says SnapGear Inc. USA president Peter Cronk, "which entirely complements Red Hat Linux. But a larger part of our business has been quietly providing OEM solutions for major USA and European telecommunications companies. We've built an impressive track record in design services, prototyping, manufacturing at our ISO9002 facility, and global fulfillment operations. The missing piece of the puzzle for us has been the ability to offer large scale professional services, which Red Hat now provides."