Intel Partners With Novell To Push Moblin OS

It's been some time yet since we've heard anything new regarding Intel's homegrown Moblin operating system, but just when you thought that Intel (and the industry at large, really) was letting go of all hope when it comes to UMPCs and MIDs, in flies this. Despite the fact that netbooks have entirely overshadowed highly portable pocket PCs, Intel and Novell are still forging ahead with plans to produce Moblin-based products with Intel's Atom processors.

The two companies recently decided to partner up in order to encourage encourage original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and original design manufacturers (ODMs) to adopt Moblin, an optimized open source Linux software platform for enabling rich Internet experiences on Intel Atom processor-based netbooks and other mobile systems. The collaboration agreement has already been signed, requiring that Novell create a Moblin-based product for netbooks that it will take to market to a wide range of OEMs and ODMs. In addition to that, Novell will open up an 'Open Labs' facility in Taiwan that will supposedly hasten the process by having a place to work jointly with companies overseas.


Believe it or not, Moblin has been around since 2007, yet it has gone almost nowhere since launching. Novell's contributions to the Moblin ecosystem include (and will include): leading the open source development of key operating system features such as window, e-mail and media management. Details about actual products and release dates have yet to be revealed, but we're definitely glad to see Intel teaming up with others in order to really light the fire under Moblin. Intel has had years to get this right, and already it looks like we'll see Android-based netbooks before Moblin-based netbooks, despite a huge disparity in preparation time. Nothing like a little competition to really get the gears turning, right?