Contact Information: Contact: Pat Arcand Arcand & Madison (USA) Ph: 617-576-7777 Email Contact Kelly Mills NICTA (Australia) Ph: +61-2-8374-5489 Email Contact
New Company Open Kernel Labs Brings Increased Reliability, Security and Performance to Key Embedded Systems in Mobile and Consumer Devices
| Source: Open Kernel Labs
CHICAGO, IL and SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA -- (MARKET WIRE) -- April 17, 2007 -- Open Kernel Labs (OK), a
spin-off of National ICT Australia (NICTA) -- Australia's prestigious
Center of Excellence for Information and Communications Technology
(www.nicta.com.au), today announces it has established its worldwide
headquarters in the United States. OK (www.ok-labs.com) is a global
supplier of operating systems and virtualization technology enabling the
development of more reliable, trustworthy and affordable mobile and
consumer electronics devices.
OK provides OKL4, the world's most advanced microkernel, the result of
research work from NICTA's Embedded, Real-time, and Operating Systems
Research Program (ERTOS). OKL4 supports a structured approach to building
trusted and secure systems, and is being successfully deployed in a number
of commercial consumer and mobile devices.
In August 2006, Open Kernel Labs was established as a commercial entity in
Australia to provide professional services, board support packages, device
optimization, consulting and research for companies worldwide. The
research and development organization will remain in Australia, while the
corporate office, including business development and field application
engineering functions, is now based in the United States.
"OK has a unique advantage of being a start-up company with a proven
product in hand," said Steve Subar, CEO and Co-Founder of Open Kernel Labs.
"From the NICTA team to a vibrant and thriving open source community, OKL4
has benefited from a wealth of technical experience unmatched in the
industry. Open Kernel Labs is fast at work building upon this great
heritage by commercializing the technology and supporting the open source
community."
"With the incorporation of OK, NICTA can claim another success of its
program to commercialize technology developed at its resource-rich
development labs," said Dr. David Skellern, CEO of NICTA. "OK is the first
spin-out of NICTA to be incorporated in the United States and the company
begins its commercial life with a revenue stream as well as strong interest
from large global companies."
Secure, reliable and trustworthy embedded systems software for mobile and
consumer electronics requires strong, hardware-enforced protection
boundaries around system components, enforced by a trustworthy microkernel.
With OKL4, embedded-systems developers can protect key systems by
protecting a manufacturer's proprietary IP and shielding applications and
systems against outside exploits and internal malfunctions.
OKL4 was initially developed under the direction of Dr. Gernot Heiser, the
CTO and Co-Founder of OK. Dr. Heiser is also Professor of Operating Systems
at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) and the Program Leader of ERTOS
at NICTA. While at NICTA, he led a team of research engineers that built a
number of operating systems including the OKL4 microkernel. With
additional input from early customers, the open source community and PhD
candidates at UNSW, this team has produced the highest performing
microkernel operating system available today.
"As the CTO of OK and Program Leader of the ERTOS team at NICTA, I have the
exciting job of overseeing the largest independent team of microkernel
researchers and developers in the world," said Dr. Heiser. "This team is
working on the most ambitious product roadmap I'm aware of and is expected
to meet the goal of providing the first fully verified, proven bug-free
operating systems kernel by 2008."
Currently the OKL4 technology is in use and under evaluation at several
semiconductor manufacturers and mobile and consumer device manufacturers.
Open Kernel Labs
Open Kernel Labs' (OK) technology leadership in embedded operating systems
and virtualization technology enables the development of reliable,
trustworthy and affordable devices. OK's open-source microkernel operating
system, OKL4, offers the highest proven performance combined with strong
protection and security features in order to provide developers with a
robust, open-source platform for building secure, differentiated embedded
applications. For more information on OK and its products visit
www.ok-labs.com.
NICTA
NICTA is a national research institute with a charter to build Australia's
pre-eminent Centre of Excellence for information and communications
technology (ICT). NICTA is building capabilities in ICT research, research
training and commercialisation in the ICT sector for the generation of
national benefit. National ICT Australia is funded by the Australian
Government as represented by the Department of Communications, Information
Technology and the Arts, and the Australian Research Council through
Backing Australia's Ability and the ICT Centre of Excellence program.
NICTA was established and is supported by its members: The Australian
Capital Territory Government; The Australian National University; NSW
Department of State and Regional Development; and The University of New
South Wales. NICTA is also supported by its partners: The University of
Sydney; University of Melbourne; the Victorian Government; the Queensland
Government; Griffith University; Queensland University of Technology; and
The University of Queensland.