CodeWeavers' Crossover plug-in software, scheduled for a May 15 launch, will be offered to Internet appliance manufacturers building platforms that run Linux or any Unix-like operating system.

Browsers have been identified as a particular problem of Internet appliances, said Jeremy White, president and founder of CodeWeavers, a 20-person company based in St. Paul, Minn. Many Linux-based Internet appliances "have browsers that simply did not work well, and often disappoint users due to the [platform's] lack of support for various popular plug-ins," White said.

Up to now, the only way to support popular plug-ins on a Linux-based platform has been to install a copy of Windows, White said. But systems companies reject this approach because Windows must be licensed and requires a huge footprint, he said.

CodeWeavers said its Shockwave and QuickTime software is the first to allow those plug-ins to run on a Linux platform. They are among the most popular browser plug-ins, along with Flash, RealPlayer and Acrobat PDF, White said. The latter three are already available in native Linux versions, he said.

Under an open source project called Wine, CodeWeavers and other companies are working on free implementations of Windows APIs for Linux. "Wine is not an emulator. It's a project to let Windows executables run on Linux," White said.

The Crossover plug-ins are optimized for National Semiconductor Corp.'s Geode silicon. CodeWeavers plans to release a general-purpose version of the plug-ins this summer for use on desktop systems.

A number of Internet appliance companies, including Netpliance, ePods and 3Com, have already fled the market. White agreed that growth in Internet appliances has been slow, but aside from cost issues related to hardware engineering, poorly-performing browsers have been a big barrier to consumer acceptance, he said. "I read many comments by users who had complained on 3Com's Audrey products," White said. "National Semiconductor also told us that the lack of support for plug-ins on Linux has been one of the biggest issues."

In addition to the Crossover plug-ins, CodeWeavers plans this fall to launch Crossover display, which will let an Internet appliance start up a Windows application installed on a nearby PC with a click of a button, but without a Windows OS. And Crossover server, scheduled for release in mid-2002, is a complete Windows-compatible Linux-based server.