| Transvirtual gets $4.0M, launches XOE device platform |
Jul. 13, 2001
Transvirtual Technologies Inc. held an open house today to show off their new offices overlooking the San Francisco Bay, and to tout a recently secured $4M funding round led by H&Q Asia Pacific. They also used the occasion to offer guests a sneak preview of a new Java/XML based information appliance platform, called eXtensible Operating Environment (XOE).
XOE (pronounced "zo' ee") integrates the eXtensible Markup Language (XML) with the company's Kaffe Java Virtual Machine (JVM). The result, according to Transvirtual executives, "is a faster, cheaper and more flexible solution specifically engineered for small, resource-constrained information appliances such as PDAs, Web-enabled mobile phones, automotive telematics and TV set-top boxes."
XOE resulted from Transvirtual's work on PocketLinux, a Linux/Java environment based on the company's Kaffe JVM combined with an XML-based GUI. As indicated in the figure below, the "XOE Client" architecture -- which runs on mobile devices or within embedded systems -- consists of a three-layer stack that includes XOE library functions, Kaffe, and Linux (or, eventually, other embedded operating systems).
According to Transvirtual cofounder and Chief Technology Officer Peter Mehlitz, the XOE Client architecture (pictured above) provides a rich combination of application program interfaces (APIs), including . . . - HTML + Javascript
- XML + Javascript
- Java Applets
- native (app, lib)
- native (driver)
In addition to the XOE Client, an XOE Server function -- which runs on a presumably larger machine (with less constrained resources) -- adds scalability to XOE-powered devices, by shifting functionality between the client and the server. Standard protocols such as XML and SOAP are used to communicate between the Client and Server. The architecture of the XOE Server is pictured below.
According to company founder Tim Wilkinson, "XOE is the commercial implementation of PocketLinux." Unlike PocketLinux and the Kaffe VM, XOE will not be offered as completely open source software but will instead be licensed by Transvirtual to OEMs manufacturing devices. However, Wilkinson says the company plans to release much of XOE to the open source community under the GNU General Public License (GPL). According to Wilkinson, XOE technology is covered by several patents. "However, all the APIs will be fully published and fully open, so there is nothing to prevent competitors from implementing compatible software," he adds.
Tony Fader, Transvirtual's VP of Marketing, portrays the advantages of XOE this way: "Basically, Java used to be an applet delivery platform -- but it was constrained to the frame that it was delivered in. What we've done with XOE is to expand that frame all the way out to the edge of the device. As a result, instead of developers writing applications to the Java or AWT APIs, we make it possible for them to write in familiar XML, xhtml, and html -- the language of the Web." According to Fader, "you can easily convert between iMODE (a sort of Japanese version of WAP) and html because the entire front end of the virtual machine is based on XML technology."
In addition to providing an application environment and other services, Transvirtual's XOE package also includes a suite of mobile computing applications -- things like schedule, notepad, addresses, calculator, browser, and so on. "XOE is everything you'd expect from a handheld PC," says Fader.
The company intends to market its new XOE technology to a wide range of embedded system and device manufacturers. Typical uses are expected to be PDAs, smart phones, interactive TVs, automotive telematics, Web-enabled information appliances, diagnostic instruments, and various other embedded systems.
H&Q Asia Pacific is a Palo Alto, California based venture capital firm that currently manages in excess of $1.8 billion and has invested in more than 300 portfolio companies throughout the Asia Pacific region and in the United States. The company was originally founded in 1985 as the Asia-Pacific venture capital arm of the Hambrecht & Quist group, but now operates independently.
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