Linspire announces custom desktop Linux Build Service for partners

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Feb. 04, 2008

Linspire, the company behind the commercial Linspire and the Freespire community desktop Linux, announced Jan. 31 that it was offering a new custom desktop Linux Build Service to its partners.

The service is designed to make it easier for resellers and white box vendors to quickly deliver affordable custom desktop Linux configurations to customers. Linspire has courted this market for many years. Indeed, Linspire, its commercial Linux, is for all intents and purposes a reseller, rather than end-user, desktop Linux.

During the last 12 months, both major -- Dell and Lenovo -- and minor -- Asus and Everex -- hardware vendors have started making desktop Linux available to customers. With the failure of Vista to gain business desktop market share, desktop Linux is becoming more attractive to business users, and thus becoming more interesting to the channel.

"With desktop Linux, more and more partners are asking for customization so they can take control of the OS," Larry Kettler, Linspire's president and CEO, said in a statement. "This service will not only provide the feature sets they want, but cut the time it takes to get to market with their products, as well as greatly reduce the overall cost to deliver a custom desktop Linux operating system."

The company states that this new service "was initially developed to make the release management process for Linspire's partners more resource efficient and less prone to defects." Specifically, Linspire claims that "the Custom OS Build Service tool set will provide the ability to quickly produce clean Debian or Ubuntu-based desktop Linux operating systems, with customizable software stacks and other customizable features."

"Our expertise and advancements in producing efficient tools for packaging and building the Linux operating system will translate into a lower overall cost in terms of time and money for our partners," Cary Harper, Linspire's vice president of engineering at Linspire, said in a statement. "As the desktop Linux operating system continues to mature and offer real cost savings as an alternative operating system, this service will allow companies to take advantage of this technology without having to deal with all the complexities."

The new service also provides for automatic patch and packing updating. This enables distributors to always ship up-to-the-minute versions of both the operating system and its applications to customers.

The Custom OS Build Service will be part of the Linspire Partner Program, with more than 7,000 approved partners worldwide, Linspire's partners have been bringing desktop Linux to the marketplace for more than five years. Interested parties in the Custom OS Build Service can simply contact Linspire at customOS@linspire.com.

The Linspire Partner Program has no upfront or annual fees or volume commitments. Resellers may opt to build pre-installed computer systems with both the commercial Linspire and community-driven Freespire desktop Linux operating systems. System builders also receive a percentage on all commercial Linux software and services purchased by users using Linspire's easy to use CNR software installation program.

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols

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