Skip to main content

Growth of Linux-Based Consumer Electronics

CRN reports that over the past six months, nearly every major consumer electronics (CE) vendor has developed plans to create home products running Linux to ensure product innovation and prevent another Microsoft market monopoly. At the same time, digital integrators are developing their own Linux-based home solutions, which often lead to higher margins and significant savings for their customers.

"Other operating systems are many hundreds of dollars more expensive, plus you have the incremental costs when new versions come out, and you have maintenance fees," says Ken Fuhrman, president of Westminster, Colorado-based Interact-TV, which makes the Linux-based Telly line of home entertainment servers. "Linux will have a much lower cost in the long term."

Linux also frees vendors and integrators from the reign of any single software vendor. "Fundamentally, having choice is a very attractive business proposition," says Scott Smyers, vice president of the Network and Systems Architecture Division at Sony Electronics and president of the steering committee of the Consumer Electronics Linux Forum (CELF), a consortium founded about a year ago to create a common standard of Linux requirements for CE devices. CELF now has more than 75 members, including Sony, Toshiba, Samsung Electronics, Royal Philips Electronics, Hewlett-Packard, Panasonic, Hitachi, NEC and IBM.

This platform-agnostic approach can ease CE device development and provide cost savings. Manufacturers and integrators have a wide pool of tools and software at their fingertips, as opposed to relying on support from vendors peddling a proprietary OS. Plus, it's easy to find developers to assist in particular projects. Linux supporters also point to its security, stability and networking strengths, which are important for always-on, networked CE devices.

Popular posts from this blog

Why 2025 Will Redefine Mobile Connectivity

As international travel rebounds to pre-pandemic levels in 2025, the mobile communication roaming market is at an inflection point. Emerging technologies and changing customer preferences are challenging traditional wholesale roaming agreements between mobile network operators (MNOs). The global wholesale roaming market is projected to more than double, from $9 billion in 2024 to $20 billion by 2028. This surge will be fueled by the expanding deployment of 5G Standalone (SA) technology, which enables real-time roaming connections and activity monitoring. But beneath this headline figure lies a complex landscape of regional variations and technological mobile service disruptions. Global Mobile Roaming Market Development Western Europe dominates inbound roaming connections, largely thanks to its Roam Like at Home (RLAH) initiative, which eliminates roaming charges among member countries.  Meanwhile, the Indian Subcontinent is emerging as a growth hotspot. Between 2024 and 2029, inbou...