CT: You say you're the first
end-to-end Linux desktop -- what exactly do you mean by that? Bego: The genesis of Xandros comes from Linux
Global Partners [LGP]. We began looking at the Linux market three
years ago. We initially saw the problem as one of not enough
applications. So we were interested in investing in companies that
would round out what would be used to fulfill the desktop. You can
have a great operating system, but if once you load it up there's
nothing to do, it's not that great for the normal user. So Xandros
was created to fulfill the promise to offer a complete solution.
There are three adjectives that we like to use to describe what
we're going to be offering: complete, simple, and supported.
CT: In what ways would Mandrake or Red Hat not
be complete? Bego: It's not so much that they are not complete,
but we are really focusing on the desktop market and the different
verticals within the desktop. So we're not trying to be something
to the server community as well. We have learned a lot from the
strategic partnership with Corel. The people that we picked up from
there know what users need on their desktops, what they don't need,
and how to put a solution together that will make people very
happy. Corel Linux went through two releases and won the PC World
award for the best new technology for the year 2000 off their 2.0
version. We're basing our distribution on version 3.0, so we're
excited about that.
