From InfoWorld:
Following a warning from Microsoft that it may stop selling Windows in South Korea, Linspire President and Chief Executive Officer Kevin Carmony has offered to license his company’s distribution of Linux and basic office productivity software for use on every computer in the country for $5 million.
Carmony said he wrote to South Korea’s President Roh Moo-hyun offering to demonstrate the software to the president or his representatives. He told of the offer in a letter entitled “How Korea Can Protect National Security and Save $200+ Million,” posted on Linspire’s Web site on Thursday.
Nice move i wonder if they will go for it.
I’d guess that they won’t go for it. It’s one thing to play with Linux, and/or to try it out for a bit exclusively, but it’s a big jump to totally convert to Linux. Not that it’s Linux inparticular, but that they would be moving away from what they’re used to.
It’s good publicity for Linspire though!
I’d have to agree with you that most Linux distributions are not ready for the desktop. Linspire 5.0 changed that. It’s not just a play distribution, it’s the only distribution that fully integrates everything one could want. Real player, windows media, commercial dvd support (with purchase of dvd player, or bundled with new computer purchase), streaming video for the web browser works with windows media & real player formats, it even has flash & java support.
What it lacks is support for macromedia shockwave support (which hardly is used on the web) but will likely be available with crossover office through cnr in the future, and also through win4lin & windows emulation if needed. Windows 98 boots in under 10 seconds in Linspire with any recent PC.
No need to mount drives, as it’s taken care of for you. It’s got numerous office suites, such as StarOffice 8, OpenOffice, & ThinkFree Office. Comparable graphics editors to paint shop pro & adobe photoshop are available as well. The main commercial quality application is the pixel image editor. Other image editors like Photogenics & gimp are available. Not to mention you have video editing products from Linux like mainactor(commercial, similar to adobe premiere) & kino.
Really- the question is: why do people think Linux is so hard? or not ready? or just a play toy?
They don’t buy quality Linux computers like most people do for Windows or Mac. They also are unaware of the good software for Linux. Sure, we all know about gimp, but it’s not the only application available.
Before you say Linspire isn’t ready- know what your talking about. If Linspire is ready- Linux is ready. Even if it’s only one distribution.
Chris
I mentioned in my post:
“Not that it’s Linux inparticular, but that they would be moving away from what they’re used to.”
That’s the point. If you are a newbie, and you have a Linspire computer, and you have problems, it’s not like you can just call your buddy to get some answers. That is a real challenge for a lot of people. When you are the only one among your friends or family using Linux, it’s a lot harder to switch.