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Marvell has announced its Plug Computing initiative to make high-performance, always on, always connected, and environmentally friendly computing readily available for developers and end-users. A Plug Computer is small enough to plug directly into a wall socket and is designed to draw so little power that it can be left on all of the time. Unlike other embedded devices in the home, it contains a gigahertz class processor to offer PC class performance. This makes it a viable alternative to a PC for any software service.
“There is no doubt that home networks need to become more intelligent and easier to use by offering value added services for the consumer,” said Dr. Simon Milner, Vice President and General Manager of the Enterprise Business Unit, Consumer and Communications Business Group at Marvell Semiconductor. “We have created an open computing platform for developers in a consumer and eco-friendly form factor. Marvell’s goal is to accelerate the development and availability of innovative software and services in the home.”
The SheevaPlug development platform uses a Marvell Kirkwood processor based on an embedded 1.2GHz Sheeva™ CPU equipped with 512 Mbytes of FLASH and 512 Mbytes of DRAM. Connection to the home network is via Gigabit Ethernet. Peripherals such as direct attached storage can be connected using a USB 2.0 port. Multiple standard Linux 2.6 kernel distributions are supported on the SheevaPlug development platform enabling rapid application development. The enclosure is designed to plug directly into a standard wall socket and is designed to draw less than one tenth of the power of a typical PC being used as a home server.
“Plug computing is a logical evolution for the digital home in the same way enterprise applications moved from servers to network appliances,” Mr. Hajime Nakai, Director, Member of the Board, BUFFALO INC. “Marvell is probably the only company that can pack so much processor performance into such a compact form factor.”
“Marvell is a leader in designing high-performance, power-efficient CPUs,” commented Linley Gwennap, principal analyst of The Linley Group. “SheevaPlug leverages this capability to deliver an impressive amount of compute performance in an innovative form factor. As a silicon provider, Marvell is providing a flexible platform for a wide variety of applications that serves both consumers and service providers.”
Early adopters of plug computing began to launch Marvell based products at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2009. These include:
Axentra: HipServ™ software running on a SheevaPlug is a complete home server platform and applications suite that allows OEMs and service providers to quickly go to market with branded home server solutions. This highly secure and stable software platform allows users to easily store, manage, share, view, or listen to digital media content in the home or remotely. www.axentra.com
Cloud Engines, Inc.: Cloud Engines launched the Pogoplug, a new device which connects your external hard drive to the internet so you can easily share and access your files from anywhere. The $99 device won accolades at CES, and the company is taking discounted pre-orders now at www.pogoplug.com
CTERA Networks: The CTERA CloudPlug, a Cloud Attached Storage™ appliance, converts any USB drive into a Network Attached Storage (NAS) device with integrated secure offsite backup. CTERA aims the device at service providers seeking to provide online backup services to consumers and small businesses.www.ctera.com
Eyecon Technologies, Inc.: Eyecon’s media companion empowers the consumer to use their mobile internet device, such as the iPhone, to manage their connected digital lifestyle. With the SheevaPlug, Eyecon allows the user to discover content from any source including the internet, DVRs, PCs and Network Attached Storage (NAS) devices and direct it to any connected media device in the home. This delivers a complete, unified media control experience from the palm of the user’s hand. www.eyecontechnologies.com
Availability and Pricing
The SheevaPlug development kit is available now for $99 throughwww.marvell.com. All the design details and the software needed to develop applications for the SheevaPlug platform are available through the Marvell website.
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