Lindows.com Releases $799 Lindows Mobile PC, Feb 20, 2003

At only 2.9 pounds, the Lindows Mobile PC is the most affordable ultra-light laptop on the market today. Despite its small size, the 933 MHz Lindows Mobile PC features a 12.1" TFT screen, 256 MB RAM, USB 2.0, Firewire, Ethernet and a PCMCIA slot that allows consumers to add a range of features, like wireless networking. The Lindows Mobile PC has a similar shape, size and power as the new Apple iNote but costs less than half the price.

Just two decades ago, Microsoft led the rebel alliance that turned computing on its head by introducing the notion of a commodity-priced operating system running on separate commodity-priced hardware. Now, Microsoft is the Empire to be toppled. The operating system is becoming a layer of code that exists, for all intents and purposes, in the public domain. And Microsoft’s responses to this shift – and threat to its core business – have been tepid and misguided.

The point of contention is simply how long a vendor should stand by its product, and how long customers should expect to qualify for free updates after purchasing an OS. Note that vendors can (and probably do) strike separate support deals with larger companies. For example, if a company wants to pay a large enough sum for Red Hat to continue to support version 6.2 into oblivion, I'm sure the company would oblige. The question is really how long the company will provide free security patches and bug fixes for rapidly aging applications.

There are several issues that the critics are glossing over. Let me address them separately.

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