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 The launch of the company's new product, LindowsOS, comes just as Microsoft has released its long awaited Windows XP. Lindows.com, established for a mere three months, is owned by former MP3.com founder and chief executive officer, Michael Robertson who claims that the company's goal is "to give the consumer a choice when it comes to their computer."
LindowsOS consists of the Linux operating system, a graphical user interface similar to Windows, and a layer of translation code that makes it possible to use Windows application programs as well as those written for Linux, the company says. Designed to download, the system can be installed and run on more than one computer without serial code registration.
Much of the criticism of Windows XP has been levelled at its registration procedure, which involves contacting Microsoft with a unique 44-digit number to "activate" the software.
"For too long there's been little competition in the operating system arena and consumers have paid the price with buggy and expensive software," said Robertson. "LindowsOS, with its ability to run many popular Windows software programs and Linux programs, gives computer owners a migration path to a new operating system which promises to be full featured and consumer friendly."
Until now efforts to make Linux popular have been hampered by the lack of available popular software and its greatest adoption has been among the technology community. However, with the introduction of a dual Operating System, Lindows hopes a broader software base will help boost the Linux operating system.
Of course, a number of questions remain about the potential of Lindows. Primarily it is unknown whether the software will work for all Windows software including the popular Windows Office products.
Lindows is not the first company to attack Microsoft at its core using the Linux operating system. Corel and Eazel both made an attempt to popularise the software in years past with little success. Red Hat, which can probably be described as the current Linux leader, has enjoyed the bulk of its success by going after the server market, not the PC market which Lindows is clearly attacking.
"LindowsOS is a huge effort and consumer input will play a critical role in our direction and success," said Robertson. "Our hope is that interested parties will evaluate our preview release, send me and the rest of the company their specific feedback, and consider our upcoming releases in their own technology plans," he said. With the preview release, the user will have access to feedback forums, databases and other customer feedback vehicles, according to the company.
LindowsOS preview release will be available in the coming weeks at a cost of USD99 and will run on computer systems with a Pentium Processor or AMD Processor, 64 MB RAM and 1GB of disk space.
For more information visit http://www.lindows.com.
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