Lucent Technologies Launches New Venture, savaJe Technologies, First Company to Offer Full Java 2 Support for Exploding Information Appliance Market

Business Wire, June 6, 2000

Business Editors

JavaOne 2000

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 6, 2000

Psion and savaJe to offer Jscream(TM) on netBook(TM) and

netPad(TM)

Lucent Technologies (NYSE:LU) today announced a new venture, savaJe(TM) (sav'age) technologies, offering an innovative operating system, Jscream(TM), that is optimized to run Java(TM) applications on information appliances. savaJe technologies is the first company to offer full support for Sun Microsystems' Java(TM) 2(TM) Standard Edition technology on the new generation of mobile and tethered devices.

Concurrently, savaJe is announcing an agreement with Psion, Inc. to offer the savaJe Jscream technology for the Psion netBook(TM) and upcoming netPad(TM) series of mobile devices. The agreement with Psion represents the first implementation of savaJe's optimized Java 2 operating system.

Lucent Technologies New Ventures Group was the seed investor in savaJe technologies, which becomes the 18th venture announced by Lucent. savaJe recently closed its second round of funding, which included Ridgewood Capital Management LLC and the Lucent Technologies New Ventures Group.

savaJe technologies will target the growing number of Java developers, estimated at 1.7 million today and expanding to 3 million by 2002, who are poised to meet the heavy demand for Java's "write once, run anywhere" applications for the exploding information appliance market.

According to International Data Corp. (IDC), the worldwide information appliance market will grow from from 11 million units in 1999 to 89 million units in 2004, with an estimated market value of $18 billion. This is a growing category that includes webphones, set-top boxes, personal digital assistants (PDAs), network computers, multimedia players and a host of wireless handheld devices.

"The Internet appliance market has created an ideal opportunity to offer an operating system focused on the holy grail for pervasive computing: fast Java 2 applications running on the Intel StrongARM architecture," said Tom Uhlman, president of Lucent's New Ventures Group. "The market opportunity for Java 2 has never been stronger, and we believe that savaJe technologies offers the right technology at the right time."

The savaJe Jscream technology is composed of a Sun Microsystems compliant Java 2 Virtual Machine and class libraries tightly integrated with a highly efficient kernel designed explicitly for the StrongARM processor. Jscream will also provide an advanced application environment created for information appliances and powered with Sun Microsystems' Jini(TM) technology. savaJe's platform leverages existing Java tools, as well as open tools such as GCC (GNU Compiler Collection) critical for development of device drivers and media codecs. Other key features of Jscream include power management and remote software update capabilities.

savaJe technologies' platform will enhance the performance of information appliances and will enable developers to achieve seamless portability between platforms, spurring faster, cheaper development cycles. The savaJe Jscream technology is optimized to deliver superior application and media codec performance on Java 2, enabling a new generation of mobile multimedia development.

Jscream will initially support the Intel StrongARM(TM) microprocessor. ARM is the leading embedded central processing unit (CPU) architecture with more than 40% market share, and StrongARM is the most powerful ARM implementation.

"savaJe's mission is to leverage the existing developer and applications base for Java 2 in order to deliver Java's full promise of running smoothly on thin devices," said Matthew Catino, president of savaJe technologies. "savaJe makes full Java scream on information appliances.

The initial concepts for savaJe were hatched while Catino, savaJe's chief technology officer Larry Rau, and fellow co-founders Frank Barrus and Craig Newell were working at Lucent Technologies. Rau added "Java's great. It's just too slow on the new classes of information appliances starting to show up all over right now. Information appliances need Jini. Jini needs Java 2. We'll make Java 2 run on these devices like it does on a full PC."

Beginning today, savaJe technologies will make an initial developer's release of Jscream available to selected information appliance OEMs and third party software companies. The product will be generally available in the fourth quarter of this year.

"With increasing emphasis on mobility computing in the enterprise, customers are seeking mobile computing platforms that are easy-to-use, lightweight, possess long battery life and are capable of supporting full enterprise applications and services. Combining savaJe technologies' Jscream with Psion provides a high performance development and deployment platform for mobile enterprise computing solutions," said George Grey, CEO of Psion, Inc. "We expect savaJe's optimized system to be very attractive to developers and enterprises seeking the full capabilities of Java 2 in a true mobile computing device."