Collaboration and Commercialisation
Industry Partners
In line with NICTA's motto of use-inspired basic research and its aim at commercialising research outcomes, ERTOS is actively developing industry collaborations, both as a source of research challenges (use-inspiration) and for putting research results into real use (commercialisation). NICTA has flexible industry-engagement models which help making this happen.
Open Kernel Labs
The prime industry partner and commercialisation vehicle for ERTOS research is Open Kernel Labs (OK Labs), the company spun out of ERTOS for specifically that purpose.
OK Labs provides products and services based on ERTOS-developed microkernel and virtualisation technology. The technology created in present ERTOS research projects will also be transferred to OK Labs for commercialisation. Beyond that, ERTOS and OK Labs maintain a close relationship, ensuring that ERTOS research remains highly relevant and has high real-world impact.
Other Local Embedded-Systems Companies
Our aim is to generate benefit to Australia by creating an embedded-systems ecosystem of local companies developing embedded systems technology. We see an opportunity for partnering with local small or medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), combining complementary products, including our own, into complete and internationally highly competitive products. By piggybacking products of other local companies onto commercially-successful ERTOS technology, we will create paths to international markets for local SMEs. This activity is directed and coordinated by NICTA's CTO (Embedded Systems).
A number of SME partnerships are in place, including Clarinox, Trantek and Fluffy Spider Technologies. We welcome inquiries from other potential partners.
International Commercialisation Activities
The commercialisation of ERTOS microkernel technology has established partnerships with several large multinationals. These are now mostly customers of OK Labs. However, ERTOS retains and will extend collaborations with international companies for more research-oriented projects.
Other IT Companies
Collaborations with the rest of the IT industry is mostly at the level of applied research with international computer companies. These include
- IBM: we have a long-standing collaboration with TJ Watson Research Center, concerned with virtualization, microkernels and similar systems (K42). We are also collaborating with IBM OzLabs on Linux-related issues. Several of our students spent between 6 and 12 months at Watson
- HP, SGI and Google: through the Gelato project associated with ERTOS we are actively collaborating with HP Labs, HP Linux and Open Source Lab and SGI on enhancing Linux on high-end systems, and Google on disk scheduling. This also involved student internships.
- Intel: we have active links with Intel Research on power management and virtualisation, which also includes student placements.
- Apple: we have active links and student placements.
University Partners
University collaborations are inherently oriented towards research, and typically involve more basic research than industry collaborations. Our main collaborators for many years have been the systems groups at the University of Karlsruhe and Dresden University of Technology, generally on issues relating to microkernels. We collaborate with the University of California, Santa Cruz on CPU and disk scheduling.