Kontron Accelerates Modular Platform Leadership, Joins Telecommunication Industry Leaders in Support of Carrier Grade Linux Initiative

Kontron Accelerates Modular Platform Leadership, Joins Telecommunication Industry Leaders in Support of Carrier Grade Linux Initiative

Kontron combines standards-based, open architecture hardware and software to improve telecom customers time to market, system reliability, availability, and performance.

Networld Interop, Las Vegas, NV, May 2002 - Kontron, a leading global embedded computing company, announced today that it will combine support for Carrier Grade Linux with its Intel-based, CompactPCI products to extend its lead in delivering high-availability, modular platform solutions to the telecommunication industry. Carrier Grade Linux is a new, more robust and fault-resilient version of Linux® that incorporates an open architecture platform.

Carrier Grade Linux is a significant element of the standards-based, open Modular Platform" approach to delivering communications solutions. Modular platforms enable telecom vendors to deliver high-availability solutions on shorter development cycles, lower costs and focus on value-add competencies such as application development and network systems integration.
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Kontron will offer Linux-based high availability (HA) solutions developed on Intel® Architecture® (IA) by validating and testing its CompactPCI (cPCI) products with MontaVista Linux Carrier Grade Edition (CGE). CGE will support the Kontron platform in Q3 of this year. Among the products to be included are Kontrons cPCI-DT64, a high performance cPCI board featuring dual Intel® Pentium® III processors and dual Gigabit Ethernet, and the XL-VHDS, Kontrons carrier-class cPCI platform offering exceptional modularity and very high density. Additionally, Kontron will focus on aligning its cPCI products with future developments in Linux technology.

"Service providers are under pressure to lower operating expenses," said Scott Richardson, General Manager of Intel's Marketing and Platform Programs. "Modular platforms based on standard Intel building blocks and Carrier Grade Linux, such as those to be offered by Kontron, provide a flexible foundation upon which to build highly available solutions. Telecom vendors can use the same platform to deliver a variety of network infrastructure solutions, speeding development time and lowering the operating expense of the service provider."

Kontrons cPCI solutions will now allow customers to take advantage of the increased reliability, manageability, availability, and serviceability enabled by the advanced features of Carrier Grade Linux.

"This new standards-based, open architecture initiative will help foster significant developments within the telecommunications industry. MontaVista Software is pleased to be working with Kontron and the other participating companies to integrate MontaVista Linux Carrier Grade Edition into telecom systems and deliver complete solutions to customers," said Jim Ready, president and CEO of MontaVista Software.

Kontrons support for Carrier Grade Linux on IA is one of the many building blocks we are instituting to enable our HA solutions," said Jacques Desjardins, VP of Technology for Kontron. Our involvement in this initiative will provide a compelling offering to our customers."
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In January of this year, the Open Source Development Lab (OSDL) formed the Carrier Grade Linux Working Group, an organization chartered with accelerating and promoting the development of a standardized set of enhancements to Linux for use in Carrier Grade applications. Founding members include Alcatel, Cisco, Ericsson, IBM, Intel, MontaVista Software, Nokia, Redhat and SuSE.

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ABOUT KONTRON: Kontron is a leading global embedded computer technology company. Kontron supplies a diversified customer base of OEMs, system integrators
and application providers in the communications, automation, transportation, medical, military, aerospace, test and measurement, and encryption security markets. The company helps its customers to considerably reduce their time-to-market and to gain a competitive advantage with products including high-performance open computer platforms and systems, single-board computers, man-machine interfaces and mobile computers. Kontron is a member of the Intel Applied Computing Platform Provider Program (ACPP Program). Kontron employs over 1100 people worldwide and has manufacturing facilities in Europe, North America and Asia Pacific. The company is listed on the German Neuer Markt stock exchange under the symbol "KBC".

For additional information on Kontron, please visit: www.kontron.com.

Kontron Media Contacts:
Media Relations

Jennifer Rodriguez
Senior Marketing Communications Specialist
Phone: 858.677.0877
jennifer.rodriguez@us.kontron.com

Technical & Pricing

Jan-Philippe De Broeck
CompactPCI Product Manager
Phone: 450.437.5682
jan-philippe.debroeck@ca.kontron.com

Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. MontaVista is a trademark of MontaVista Software Inc. All other products, services, companies, events and publications are trademarks, registered trademarks or servicemarks of their respective owners in the U.S. and/or other countries.