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When IBM announced that its research department had produced a Linux-powered watch on Monday, officials expected the news to be greeted with joy, if not downright reverence.
Instead, many in the media and open source community responded with jokes about "cluster clocks" and "Dick Tracy watches."
"People don't seem to be getting the importance of what was accomplished here," said Alex Morrow, head of IBM's Linux Watch development team.
Morrow said that the real issue is the overall scale of the prototype –- that it has the smallest motherboard -- almost the size of a postage stamp -- that presently is capable of running Linux.
"It was a technical challenge," he continued. "The ultimate goal here was to demonstrate that Linux could be reduced (and therefore was proven to be scaleable) for a very small form factor."
Morrow said that the constraints imposed by the physical size of the unit required special manufacturing technology, particularly when building the motherboard. The small display and limited input mechanisms also presented significant challenges.
"Fitting the components involved the use of advanced hardware packaging technologies," Morrow said. "We used Surface Laminar Circuit (SLC) technology for fabrication of the circuit boards. Wire bonding was used to attach the CPU to the circuit board. Surface mount packaging was used for most other components."
From a software standpoint, Morrow said the developers had to address issues of limited memory. And he notes that IBM researchers are still working on solutions for the limited power that will be available when the unit has a self-contained battery.
"Proving Linux is workable on this small scale is important in itself," Morrow said. "It was an interesting challenge to create a Linux environment on a self-contained device small enough to fit into a wristwatch."
Although IBM's Linux watch is a prototype that will not be marketed, Morrow said that it should be considered an open invitation for developers.
"We hope they will be inspired to imagine what it would take to add new features to the watch, even if kernel changes are required," he said. "The availability of source code and a well-understood application programming environment makes it relatively easy to add new operating system facilities. This makes Linux an ideal platform for this type of research."
Some Linux developers are starting to get excited about the possibilities.
"I have to admit when I first heard about it I thought it was just a publicity stunt," said George Nobick, a network administrator and Linux developer.
"Do we really need to stuff Linux into every possible container on the planet just to prove we can? It seemed like a cool but essentially useless project."
But Nobick said that, after discussing the watch with his colleagues, they began to "dream up" different applications for the technology and started seeing its potential.
"Email on your wrist, a PIM, a pager, an MP3 player ... since it would be an open system, in theory you could take the basic form factor and hack it into being whatever you wanted it to be by adding new code."
Michael Peterson, who works with Nobick, says IBM should never have called its device a watch. If they'd dubbed it a "wrist computer," he feels, people wouldn't have dismissed it so quickly.
"There is no operating standard yet for these small computer devices that will be in wide use in a few years. And I'd love to see Linux become that standard," Peterson said.
Daniel Frye, the director of IBM Linux Technology Centers, said that the watch prototype proves Linux will have a major role in all types of embedded applications.
"This application is just the beginning of technologies that will be driving the future of Internet tools and applications," Frye said. "We are only scratching the surface of the possible innovations that an open environment provides."
"Once again, we have proved that there is no limit to innovation in open source communities."
