Lindows.com, the Pitch
by Volker Weber
On Febrary 6th 2002 I saw Michael Robertson, CEO of Lindows.com, speak at the local San Diego Linux Users Group. Mr. Robertson, founder and former CEO of mp3.com, is a charismatic and compelling speaker. He makes his audacious schemes seem logical, even self-evident!. When I saw Mr. Robertson speak at San Diego's "new economy" event iLounge in 1999, he was in the midst of the controversies about syndicating hundreds of songs via the My.mp3.com service. This is the incident that ended up in settlements with multiple music companies totaling million of dollars with the music industry. Robertson got the last laugh, as mp3.com was sold for $372 million to Vivendi, and continues to be a force in the online music space. In 2001 he founded Lindows.com here in San Diego, California, USA. In so doing, he has attracted fire from the largest Software company in the world, Seattle's Microsoft. He spoke about Lindows, Operating Systems, Microsoft, and the changing role of the OS in the mix of computing.
