MontaVista - corrections and amplifications

WE HAD AN interesting conversation with MontaVista on the phone yesterday. Let's explain what happened. We were down at the ECTS show and fielding the call on our mobile phone, with fire engines, ambulances and the like making it hard to hear to be heard.

Then the guy's dog at the other end of the line started barking, he went away for a few minutes, with the mutt still kicking up an enormous racket, and the fire engines were still clanging along the Brompton Road. The guy came back to say someone was at the front door trying to deliver a parcel but it was for the chap next door.

With all this background noise in mind, we're happy to run this letter clearing up what the guys at MontaVista were trying to say, and what we were trying to hear them say... µ

Mike

Thanks for taking time to chat with us earlier today. We appreciate your willingness to hear us out despite all the background noise and interference which made for a challenging conversation on the mobile.

We had the opportunity to see your subsequent piece based on the article and have the following suggestions to offer.

* I am sorry we were unable to fully introduce ourselves at the start. My contact information is below. The other gent on the line was Bill Weinberg.

He is our Director of Strategic Marketing. Our Corporate Legal counsel was unable to join the call due to a schedule conflict. Can you attribute the statements in the piece to "MontaVista spokesperson" or some such attribution but not our "chief lawyer" since he was not actually part of this discussion.

* Can you correct the company name to MontaVista Software ?

* In the second para, the reference to margins in our comments was in the context of the margins of the OEMS (typically our customers) and not our own [" Officials at the company explained that attempts by SCO to get this amount of royalty for each instance of embedded Linux would pare its margins to the bone,.."]

* The NDA requirment from SCO applies to anyone who wants to discuss the situation with them and view the allegedly infringing code, not just to Open Source companies.

* With regards to the sentence :"..And the dispute between SCO and IBM is nothing to do with the code embedded Linux uses, he added. That relates to SMP, to Numa, to IA64 and to binary emulation, he claimed. IA32 code could also be part of such a case, he suggested."

We stand by the comments vis-a-vis SMP, NUMA, IA64 and binary emulation.However, we did not nor are we in a position to make any statements with regards to IA32.

I apologize if it appears we are nitpicking your commentary. But I expect that the very difficult communication channels and the noise, contributed significantly to the corrections we are making above. Would it be too much trouble to request you to update your write with the corrections pointed out, above.

Once again, it was a pleasure talking with you. If we can address any other questions you may have or provide any more clarifications, please do let us know.

Cheers

See what we mean? µ