| Peace, Love, . . . Lycoris |
(Feb. 5, 2003)
'Flower Power' was the mantra of a generation in the 1960s. That metaphor takes on a whole new meaning as DesktopLinux.com interviews Lycoris executives, CTO Joseph Cheek and marketing guru Jason Spisak about Lycoris' Linux desktop. The in-depth talk focuses on the company's strategy, open source philosophy, the challenge to Microsoft's Windows XP, and how Lycoris is shaping the future of Desktop Linux for the consumer today . . .
DesktopLinux.com: Many people talk about Linux not being ready for 'primetime' and suggest only early adopters are incorporating Linux into their computing environments. Picked by Time Magazine as 'one to watch', Lycoris has enjoyed much success on a modest budget. What is your take on the desktop computing market and where does Lycoris fit in?
Jason Spisak: Right now, I think it all depends on how the individual uses their computer. Linux, Desktop/LX in particular, is good at a subset of the vast amount of things people *can* do with a PC. Most people never do half of what's possible, so Desktop/LX is a good fit for many people.
Making it easy to check email, browse the web with full interactivity and multimedia pre-configured, and use their printer and cameras -- Lycoris' main focus -- no pun intended. That's why we took a major leap with Vivitar, a company that had no Linux support, and have worked with them to get their entire line of digital cameras Desktop/LX Certified. Labels will be right on the box so consumers can see that it's compatible. Lycoris is helping consumers get the same kind of acceptance for their Linux PC as they do with their Windows PC. We're making Linux a first-class desktop citizen.
Joseph Cheek: Lycoris fits in neatly at the value end of the market. by providing affordable software for consumers, we show them that software can be functional and usable without being expensive.
DL: Reuters reported 'brisk sales' if the Microtel $199 Desktop/LX PCs on Walmart.com. Can you elaborate on the success and provide us with any numbers?
Jason Spisak: We sold over 700 in one week before Christmas. It's a testament to the power of WalMart and a good bargain. The real challenge comes when we see how many of those customers are still using Desktop/LX when the next update, Update 3, hits our update servers. Our goal isn't to get people to just try Linux because it's inexpensive. We want people to use it and get hooked.
DL: Lycoris has a goal to offer software to consumers at a tremendous value. Walk us through the home end user's office -- realistically what is the cost/benefit vs.functionality that Lycoris delivers. What, for example, is the difference in average cost, product support, et. al for the home user using Lycoris Desktop LX vs. Microsoft XP?
Jason Spisak: Sure thing. Home users typically have the following assortment of software: - Windows XP Home => $75 OEM new PC
- Office XP => $299
- Quicken / Money => $29
- Photoshop or other image editing software => $0 - $899
- Anti-Virus software => $30
Total: $433
In this scenario, the user is probably under utilizing Office XP and Photoshop. Those programs have a ton of features most people never touch or learn how to use. That's why many people pirate software. They don't see the value of the features they'll never use and so don't want to pay for it. That's why the Lycoris Home Office is less
expensive and a more realistic in terms of getting use for your dollar.- Desktop/LX Personal => $29.95
- ProductivityPak => $49.95
- Kapital / Moneydance => $29
- GIMP => $0 included with Desktop/LX
Total: $108.90
So you save $324.10 upfront going with Lycoris and other Linux products. Funny thing is, for that $324.10, you can buy an entire additional Desktop/LX PC and install the software you bought on it for no charge. Technically, Microsoft won't let you do that. Though many people do. ;-)
Upkeep is another area where Desktop/LX based homes have an edge. For example, you don't have to update your Anti-Virus software because you don't need any in the first place.
DL: The competition for the Linux desktop is heating up in 2003. We all know the companies vying to dominate the space -- including those holing back until they feel the public is ready to embrace a Linux desktop. Everyone has floated a beta or released an initial offering to the public. Is there really room for so many players? How is Lycoris positioned to emerge as a leader?
Joseph Cheek: The public is definitely ready - I think those holding back are doing so because they feel their products, or their company, isn't ready, rather than the public. is there room? It depends on the size of the market 8-). With a large market, there is lots of room.
Jason Spisak: Funny that you should mention that some companies are holding back until the public is ready. That could be spin. The real question is, are their products ready for the desktop public? The needs of the desktop are pretty demanding, and for larger players, it's scary to put your toe in that water. The Lycoris philosophy on desktop leadership is simple: innovate.
Lycoris was the first to seriously trim down the average Linux offering into a coherent desktop-oriented package. Others have followed and taken similar steps. Lycoris was the first to put real attention into look and feel and went the extra mile to make users feel comfortable with attractive colors, icons sets and familiar GUI elements. Again others have followed. Lycoris was the first to take an established consumer oriented company like Vivitar that has been making cameras since before we were born, show them Desktop/LX and what Linux has to offer for a strictly desktop piece of hardware like a digital camera, and have them say 'Yes, we'll support that'. We're talking about digital cameras here, not RAID cards. A very consumer-oriented market. Your product has to be easy to use so companies can envision Mom and Dad using it with their products. That's when support for consumer devices starts to make sense.
Desktop/LX is the first Linux based OS like that. Being a leader in the desktop Linux space is about action. Actions that bring about the arrival of an alternative to Windows on the PC. Lycoris has been, and will continue to be, the leader with this kind of work. It's because our focus is and will always be the desktop end user. That's priority one for us.
DL: Is Lycoris a pure Linux play? Is your technology based on vanilla Linux or are there proprietary components as well? How does Lycoris work with open source philosophy and as a commercial company?
Jason Spisak: Desktop/LX is based on a custom Linux kernel and KDE desktop with all of our changes contributed back to the projects from which they came. The proprietary component of Desktop/LX is the branding, the look and feel. It's the 'Lycoris-ness' of it. We're big on the power of trademark and it's ability to help replace what Open Source changes in traditional business models.
Joseph Cheek: We have released many of our components, such as the network browser, My Linux system, our KDE changes, our installer changes, the code for video recovery mode -- and much more as open source.
DL: Lycoris does not tout 'emulation technologies' as a 'bridge' to Microsoft Windows applications. What are your theories on supporting or not supporting these approaches?
Jason Spisak: We see emulation or API compatibility with Windows as a losing proposition for gatekeeper applications. Things like office suites, money management software and media players need to be native, Linux, home-grown programs if the desktop is ever to be won. We looked back at history for a compelling lesson on how to decide on this one. IBM, a huge company, created OS/2 to compete on the desktop with Windows. OS/2 ran Windows software to take advantage of the existing application base, but it had some wonderful things about it that trumped Windows at the time. However, because of that compatibility layer, application developers simply developed for Windows and supported OS/2 by default due to the emulation. End result was a lack of OS/2 native apps and the eventual failure of that bid for the desktop. Lycoris is not going to repeat that mistake.
That being said, we believe that you need some compatibility to get in the door when there's a monopoly. So we place our bet on file formats, being able to run things like the QuickTime Player since it's not from Microsoft, and being able to run games on our GamePak since there's plenty of competition in the game market. With games, it's a different story than office suites since the market is always changing. Can you tell me the number one game for the last year? Can you tell me the number one office suite? That's the difference. If you run Microsoft Office on Linux, you are giving Microsoft a lot of power because it's the leading office suite by a huge margin and the lynch pin in their market dominance. If you run 200 Windows games, you're not giving up nearly as much power because there's a new top game every week, and it isn't always from your direct competitor.
Joseph Cheek: We do include Wine for Windows applications emulation, and bundle a WineX offering with our GamePak. We think there is stronger power, however, in encouraging native Linux application development.
DL: The Lycoris user interface is familiar, simple, and easy to use for a customer coming from Windows-based desktops. By providing a context-based menu system, Lycoris is avoiding selecting either KDE or Gnome. Do you think a common UI will be embraced by companies that emerge in the Desktop Linux marketplace? How do you currently take advantage of say Gnome's GnomeMeeting or KDE's advances today?
Jason Spisak: Thanks for the compliment. We aim to ease the transition for users as well as support staff switching to Desktop/LX from a Windows environment. To that end, we use KDE desktop since it's a bit closer to Windows. Platform neutral code and unifying technology is good when it comes to underlying code, like Qt, Mono and Java. We're not huge fans of smashing all the different GUI toolkits into one interface at the top level though.
Joseph Cheek: I believe a common UI needs to be embraced, and we're taking a stand for it, even if it keeps us from having native support for a competing technology.
DL: Lycoris' Network Browser allows users to browse a Windows-based network and browse shared files. How else does Lycoris offer cross-platform support for end users?
Jason Spisak: File formats are a big thing that we try to offer compatibility for depending on the task at hand. For intense office compatibility, our ProductivityPak let's you read and write .doc, .xls, and .ppt. But it doesn't save to those formats by default since we try to emphasize open standards. We also allow Desktop/LX users to their share files with Windows workstations, so it works both ways. Desktop/LX also plays nice with Windows installations already on the same PC. Users can read and write to Windows95/98/ME and read from 2000/XP partitions and they automatically show up in 'My Linux System' for point and click access. Printing on a network works both ways as well. Desktop/LX prints to shared Windows printers, and you can share your printer with Windows machines from Desktop/LX. We also include an RDP client that will display Windows Terminal Server sessions on Desktop/LX. It's a Windows world, so part of our success has been how Desktop/LX gets along with that world.
Joseph Cheek: By including native support for the same files you would commonly have on a Windows box -- everything from .doc and .xls to .avi and .mpg and most others in between. Our biggest push is not cross-platform support, it's easier with migration. We've made it very easy for a typical Windows user to pick up our OS and feel comfortable, right out of the box.
DL: Lycoris has been increasingly focusing on the consumer and addressing their needs. The certification of Vivitar's digital camera for Desktop/LX is one example of Lycoris addressing consumer demand. What other areas is Lycoris actively pursuing?
Joseph Cheek: We believe hardware support is the next logical step after mitigating migration woes. You will see more from us in this regard . . .
Jason Spisak: Without going into too much detail, we've got other large name consumer hardware companies lined up and certifying their products on Desktop/LX.
We really want users to get the best impression of Linux as a supported platform. We've always thought more about, "How's my Mom going to be able to do this?, Will she be able to get easy to understand help if she needs it?", than about anything else. It's the kind of thinking Lycoris is made of. We are working on an amazing consumer device that is going to blow some doors open in the market. No other Linux company is as end user focused as Lycoris.
DL: Lycoris is making inroads by dealing with manufacturers and a implementing a certification program. But what about the commercial off-the-shelf test? Are you finding that certain brands, such as an HP or Canon printers perhaps, are Linux-compatible and 'just work' with Lycoris? Do you offer a list of these peripherals so a consumer could make a determination of switching to Lycoris using existing hardware?
Jason Spisak: We have a hardware compatibility list that's growing everyday. There's about to be over 800 printers in it. Successful commercial off-the-shelf testing really comes down to whether someone in the Linux community made a driver or not. There are no major companies in the desktop consumer space that flat out support Linux. That's going to change. Just watch. We'll fix it. ;-)
DL: For the business desktop. Lycoris offers Interconnect. Could you briefly walk us through the support it offers to the mixed computing environments found in corporations. How will offices most benefit from the Lycoris solution? Can you give us some success stories?
Gladly. InterConnect combines the ease of use of Desktop/LX with our ProductivityPak office suite and Ericom Software's PowerTerm terminal emulator for legacy connectivity. Imagine a bank that has an HP9000 that stores its data, but it also has desktop needs like word processingfor different application printouts, customer information paper work and they have inter-office email and an intranet site. In this scenario the bank needs to buy a copy of Windows XP, Office XP, and a Terminal Emulator all of which runs upwards of $500 (that's being very conservative) per workstation. Ouch. Desktop/LX InterConnect costs $199 per workstation and fits the bill perfectly. It even includes an RDP client to connect to any essential back office applications running on a Windows Terminal Server computer. For corporate situations like these, Desktop/LX InterConnect is a life saver when budgets are tight like they are now.
DL: Could you talk about the GamePak gaming suite specifically. It is available for pre-order now and is billed to use TransGaming's WineX technology and optimized games -- there is even a free month subscription to TransGaming included. What commercial product out there now is your solution comparable with?
Joseph Cheek: Is it comparable with anything? I think we're ahead of the pack on this one. No one else has a bundle of native Linux games with integrated Windows game compatibility. It's also very exciting and very fun, -- you'll see more of this in the future.
Jason Spisak: GamePak is such an exciting piece of software. For many users it knocks down the last barrier to them going with Linux full-time on their PC. We kept hearing from users, "I love Desktop/LX, but I need to have my games, otherwise I'd wipe my Windows partition clean." We'd don't want to let things like that stop Desktop/LX from being their primary OS. That's why Lycoris and TransGaming partnered up and brought Windows gaming to the GamePak. Thanks to TransGaming's incredible WineX technology, users can enjoy over 200 Windows games at native speeds on their Desktop/LX system to ease the transition to a fully Linux-only gaming style. On top of that, GamePak includes 5 full games that cover the entire spectrum of action, strategy and fun in the box. For $34.95 Desktop/LX users get Lycoris versions of Racer, FreeCiv, Falcon's Eye, BZFlag and Possbile Worlds. A single Windows game costs more than this whole package, so it's a great value.
DL: As Lycoris, the company, evolves you are adding partners worldwide. Do your localization efforts inlclude Desktop LX becoming available in alternative languages such as French, Spanish, or Japanese?
Jason Spisak: What's in a name? A Lycoris by any other name would smell as sweet. Lycoris is actually a type of flower, a beautiful, hearty amaryllis. The name of the company was originally Redmond Linux. That name, while a neat insider joke in technology circles, didn't really carry the 'trademarkable' resonance we needed for the long haul. We wanted something that conveyed the friendliness and approachability that we embody in our products, so we chose a flower. Lycoris had a Linux-like look and sound to it without infringing on any other trademarks. It's pronounced Lie-kor-ess with the emphasis on the first syllable. Actually, the pronunciation question is a conversation starter and has worked for us on many occasions. It's great to have people call and ask for Licorice. In fact I have some right here, just in case. ;-)
DL: Thanks!
Talk back! Do you have comments or questions about this story? talkback here
(Click here for further information)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
