Vik Karvat, senior marketing director at NetXen, said that the Chimney and Sockets packages could be a precursor to opening up the NetXen firmware to allow third parties to develop accelerators for less popular server environments. The Linux solution, he emphasized, was a fully downloadable module that required no kernel recompilations. Traffic can be offloaded by port, by IP address, or by application.

NetXen is arguing that, by offering loadable modules for Windows and Linux for a general-purpose NIC, users can save power-consumption and labor costs in expanding data centers, as network gains can be made with simple firmware upgrades.