Lindows.com, which is being paid $20 million by Microsoft to call itself something else, has priced its pending IPO at between $9 and $11 a share. It'll be using the auction process developed by WR Hambrecht, the outfit that pioneered the idea.

The company is hoping to raise $57.5 million, money it desperately needed before the handsome Microsoft settlement materialized last Friday just to keep the wolf from the door.

Lindows, which has been around for three years now, has yet to make a penny and has run up a tidy multimillion-dollar debt in the process, which is apparent from the fact that it's got 62 employees and had revenues of only $2 million last year. Founder Michael Robertson also wants to get back the $10 million he's put in the joint, hence, the IPO.

Robertson owned 81.3% of Lindows, which will style itself Linspire from here on out, going into the IPO and will emerge from the IPO with 63.7%.

Lindows started calling itself Linspire after Microsoft's lawyers chased it out of the Benelux, but Lindows had the last laugh. Microsoft is paying Lindows to settle the trademark infringement suit Microsoft, yes, Microsoft, brought against Lindows only to find the thing turned on its head and threatening to cost it its precious Windows trademark.

Lindows expects to go public on the Nasdaq under the call letters LINE.

Whether it'll ever be able to make much of a dent on the desktop against the combined competition of Microsoft, Novell, Red Hat and Sun remains to be seen.

The IPO and Microsoft money will let Lindows develop its distribution channels, expand sales and marketing, develop or buy products and hire more people.

• Breaking News: Lindows Abandons Plans to IPO by Auction, à la Google