AMD and Motorola owned developer tools company Metrowerks demonstrated a pre-release version of their upcoming OpenPDA mobile systems development platform built around AMD's Alchemy Au1100 small devices processor at this weeks LinuxWorld trade show. The reference platform, dubbed the wordy AMD Alchemy Solutions Mobile Client Reference Design Kit, is designed to simplify the development and testing of PDA, smartphone, web pad, and other portable devices. The software components of the OpenPDA initiative are based on a Linux kernel, Trolltech's QTopia interface, Insignia's Java VM, the Opera web browser, and a slew of productivity apps developed exclusively for OpenPDA. For hardware, the Alchemy Au1100, based on MIPS32, provides a System On Chip (SOC) solution integration video, audio, and IO interfaces into a small package. Whether the Au1100's 333 to 500MHz processor speeds and optimizations can help it compete against Intel's already entrenching XScale processor line remains to be seen.