About six months ago, we started building Lindows.com with the goal of bringing choice to the personal computer and today we're announcing a milestone – a further glimpse of Lindows.com’s Operating System, Sneak Preview 2.

Surprising as this might sound, Lindows.com is not about selling an operating system. Allow me to reference the automobile as an example. Nobody says, "I need an engine." They say, "I need a car." And most times, what they really mean is that they need transportation. It's the same with a computer. They're not buying an operating system or a Pentium III®. Nobody needs an operating system, they need a solution which will help them communicate, entertain, educate, or get their work done.

Click-N-Run™ is a powerful new feature in the latest preview of our operating system, LindowsOS, which opens the door to a world of high-quality software solutions that can be instantly zapped to any machine running LindowsOS. Finding and installing software has always been a tricky, time-consuming experience. LindowsOS users can now browse a warehouse of software titles in a rich graphical presentation via the Warehouse tab on Lindows.com or by launching Click-N-Run from their desktop. From here they can read descriptions of products, do comparisons, and view screenshots and best of all, a single click will download and install the title of their choice. Never before has it been this simple to peruse software titles and add them to your computer.

The Lindows.com staff has seeded the warehouse with a few programs to demonstrate this technology. Our hope is to have hundreds of great software titles for every conceivable need in our warehouse in the near future. We're working on a publisher interface at publish.lindows.com where our Insiders, and others, will help identify and package the best software titles which will power Click-N-Run.

We expect to have our first official release later this year. We're making LindowsOS Sneak Preview 2 available to our Insiders to update them on the direction we are going and to gain their valuable input. The other significant feature enhancement is the ability to view and print the major file formats without purchasing additional software -including Microsoft Word, Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft Excel files - look here for a complete list. For those of you with a few minutes to spare who want to do an install on a non-essential machine, and are willing to give us their feedback, I encourage you to consider signing up as an Insider

What has not improved in LindowsOS Sneak Preview 2 is the ability to run Microsoft Windows software titles as well as installing LindowsOS on more obscure hardware configurations. You'll see marked improvements in those areas with the next version.

As with our earlier release, LindowsOS Sneak Preview 2 is not a complete product and is best suited for those willing to give us their input after the five-minute installation process on a spare machine. Yes, installs take under five minutes. On a machine with Microsoft Windows 98, it’s even easier. Just download the installer, double-click and go - no need to even create a CD. And as long as you select the "Friendly-Install" you can switch between Microsoft Windows 98 and LindowsOS with a simple restart of your machine.

As always, thanks for your support and thanks for helping us bring choice back to computers!

Michael Robertson
CEO Lindows.com, Inc.
michaelr@lindows.com


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