BUZZ
Supersecretive Transmeta finally launches its Crusoe mobile processor in late January, ending more than four years of silence surrounding the company's work. But the product may pale in comparison with the company's true core competency: building buzz by saying absolutely nothing.
Transmeta's deep-cover hype dates back to when its founders lured Linux creator Linus Torvalds from Finland to work at the company's Santa Clara, California, HQ. Since then, techies scouring the source code of the company's Zenlike Web site ("This web page is not here yet") could view a hidden message: There are no secret messages in the source code to this web page. When Torvalds himself finally took the stage on behalf of Transmeta at last November's Comdex, the secret message was promptly updated: On January 19th, 2000, Transmeta is going to announce and demonstrate... cool hardware and software for mobile applications.
The stealth campaign has proven more effective than a raft of edgy commercials: Red Herring editors named Transmeta a Top 100 technology firm while admitting they didn't know what the company did.
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