Earlier this week, Intel released Moblin, an open source project focused on developing software for Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs) and other new categories of devices such as net books and net tops. This as you may know is an emerging category which companies like Intel and Asus find lucrative.

Earlier today, Asus launched their next generation of their low-cost EEE PC in India stirring up the market and opening up a new segment in the process. Needless to say, it is a closely watched segment and one that could end up being fiercely competitive.Coming back to Moblin, the project has drawn support from a wide range of tech companies, including Adobe and Real Networks. Now that Moblin 1.0 is ready for release, Linux distributors such as Xandros and Canonical have both integrated aspects of Moblin into their mobile-centric distributions. It consists of seven interconnected projects, from an image creator that developers can use to build device-specific OS installations to a platform-specific kernel and user interface framework to a web browser and multimedia support components.

With the expected launch of the Acer Aspire One notebook with the Intel Atom Processor, Moblin will be directly pitted against Windows XP, which will continue to be sold with ultra small devices.