I’m a big fan of the Pepper software and the Pepper Pad 3 hardware. For me, it represents one of the first real attempts at filling the software void that exists between smartphones and notebooks and it does a good job. The Firefox-based browser works well, the user interface does exactly what it should and its simple to use. This software gap is something Kevin Tofel was talking about and something that I believe needs to be sorted out before the new wave of device hardware hits the market in 2008. Until now, Pepper have been focusing on the AMD Geode hardware which, as we’re seeing in more and more devices, is lending itself well to low-end Internet devices. However with Intel’s focus on a new, dedicated, MID platform, its clear there’s going to be a lot of Intel hardware flying about. Ubuntu, Gnome and RedFlag are already in the game and it makes sense for Pepper to re-build their software (and nice back-end update architecture) for the Intel hardware. I’m not sure that they’ve joined Intel’s MIDIA group but the press release certainly feels like its got the Intel stamp of approval so I guess that means they’re contributing to the whole piece. Which makes sense. There only needs to be one Linux core distribution but there’s probably opportunities for many different flavored user interfaces. Expect the new distro shortly after the summer.
