IBM's Linux Watch: The Challenge of Miniaturization

Reviewer: Bayard Kohlhepp

IBM’s Linux watch is a fascinating historical event. When this project was publicized (1999-2000), fanatics on all sides were arguing the merits of Linux versus Unix on servers, Linux versus Windows on the desktop, and Linux versus the world in embedded systems. As an embedded systems programmer, and open source advocate, I remember the many voices that told me Linux would fail on all fronts. It’s now 2004. Linux has taken over so much server, desktop, and embedded market share that it’s no longer newsworthy. In fact, Mac OS X has replaced Linux as the avant-garde OS. Microsoft is striving mightily to sow fear, uncertainty, and doubt in potential customers, a strategy that IBM made famous before it shed its big iron image on the way to becoming the world’s largest Linux advocate. How did Linux move from obscurity into the limelight so quickly__?__ This little watch was part of that process. It demonstrated just how capable Linux was, and how wrong the detractors were. The Linux watch was an in-your-face achievement at a critical point in time, an elegant expression of convergence when Linux and wearable computers were seeking to be taken seriously. The paper ignores such politics. It is a simple, unpretentious, and very readable recounting of the innumerable details involved in designing and building this peculiar little device. Again, as an embedded programmer, I found it fascinating. Each revelation is like the tick of a watch, the click of a tumbler falling into place, all leading to one inevitable conclusion: at that point in time, only IBM had the resources to pull it off. The tech world would be a very different place today if IBM and Linux had not found each other in this whimsical little project. Online Computing Reviews Service