| By Linux News Desk |
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| April 15, 2004 12:00 AM EDT |
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"Today," writes CEO Michael Robertson at the new
Linspire site, "we're announcing our new name - Linspire."
He continues:
"The new name incorporates the notched L we are known for, 'Lin' from Linux and 'spire' which means pinnacle. More important than what people think of the new name initially, is what they come to think of it over time. Few people who hear "Motorola" think of radios for motor cars, but that's the heritage of their name. Motorola's products and services now convey much different meaning to consumers. Lindows will face the same challenge with our new name. Most computer users have never experienced Lindows, so we have a chance to make that all-important first impression. We will work hard to make sure Linspire comes to stand for affordability and choice as well as ease of use."
And so, bang on the April 14 deadline as promised last week, Lindows Inc. has finally done it. While the company retains its corporate name, it is building a new corporate Web site at www.lindowsinc.com because www.lindows.com is no longer in use, and the URL merely forwards to a wholly new URL: www.linspire.com.
Explaining the total worldwide retreat from the "LindowsOS" name - even though the Microsoft litigation involved only European courts - Robertson explains:
"Microsoft is asking courts to levy massive fines just because users in certain foreign countries can access our website. We can't afford to lose a battle on this topic. Second, we have partnerships with hard disk, motherboard, laptop and desktop companies that want to ship our products to their worldwide market. If they are restricted to certain countries, then it impedes their business and therefore ours."
In other words, despite court victories in the U.S. and other countries, Robertson's decision is that a name change was still necessary to counter Microsoft's strategy of suing Lindows around the world.
In answer to the inevitable questions about whether there will be a huge publicity push in conjunction with the name change, Robertson is at his innovative best:
"We'd like to take out full-page ads in the Wall Street Journal, PC World and eWeek," he says wistfully, "but our budget doesn't allow for that."
Instead, he continues, Lindows Inc has "something even better planned."
"For the next few days," Robertson explains, "we have a special offer where you can receive a copy of Linspire, hot-off-the-presses for free."
The new site explains that, basically, it's all an attempt to help reinforce the new "Linspire" name - without "melting" the company's servers.
"But there's a catch - actually two. First, you must use a special coupon code. Simply click on $49.95 Linspire 4.5 OS from the order page. Then click on the 'Apply Coupon' button and enter the coupon code. Second, the download will only be available from our BitTorrent P2P system so our servers don't melt. Don't worry if you've never tried BitTorrent. It runs on Microsoft Windows, Macintosh and Linux computers and is easy to get started. We'll give you step by step instructions. And no, it's not an oversight that I haven't provided the actual coupon code. You'll have to guess what the one-word code is."
It will be interesting to see what folks say about all of this in the
Linspire forums. The reaction of the Slashdot community can be found
here.
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