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April 1, 2005

Novell and OpenNETCF.org to bring .NET to Embedded Linux

Today Novell will announce their acquisition of OpenNETCF.org. This deal will not only ensure the future development of the Smart Device Framework on the Windows CE platform, but also under Embedded Linux, PalmOS, and a proprietory BSD-based platform that is yet to be disclosed.

The OpenNETCF.org team will primary focus on the development of a rationalized version of Mono (preliminarily named, Compact Mono), initially targetting the Embedded Linux platform. It is hoped that this will open up the possibility of cross-platform embedded development on a whole host of platforms and devices.

In a short press release to the media this morning, Miguel de Icaza, VP Developer Platform at Novell,  released the following statement:

"OpenNETCF.org is key to Novell's business strategy in the embedded space. We realise the potential benefits for our customers to be able write code in C# and run this under Mono not just on a server or desktop machine, but also on PDAs, smartphones, games consoles or even internet toasters. When it comes to .NET technologies and knowing the constraints that embedded devices have, the OpenNETCF.org folks really know their stuff. And we just had to have them."