In a move to expand its market, smart phone software provider Geoworks Inc said it has ported its Geos SC operating system to Itron, the de facto standard for embedded systems in Japan. OEMs that make Itron-based wireless devices will now be able to use Geos-SC to add graphical capabilities to their products. Geoworks asserts that Geos-SC, which uses a single CPU, will enable Japanese OEMs to quickly bring to market a new generation of smart phones, digital cameras, PDAs and car navigation systems. The company reckons that Itron will bring it a valuable new market opportunity, as more than one-third of products using embedded systems software made in Japan utilize the Itron specifications. Many devices that use Itron kernels also have small memory footprints, a problem which Geoworks feels it can solve with what it says is a complete, compact graphics and windowing system that features a GUI in 256Kb, with slightly more memory needed for email and web browser support.
