The company announced on Wednesday that its Linux operating system will now be called Linspire and that a similarly named Web site will be the primary online destination for consumers who want to purchase the company's products or who need support for previously purchased software.
The name change had been expected, following recent court rulings in Europe. The company last week acknowledged that lawsuits by Microsoft challenging the Lindows name would force it to adopt a new moniker for Europe and other foreign markets.
But in the United States, where Lindows has had more interim success in its legal battles with Microsoft, the name Lindows will still be used in certain instances and as the corporate name.
"Despite our victories in the United States and overseas, a name change is still necessary to counter Microsoft's strategy to sue us in courts around the world. We're hoping that this puts a halt on the international lawsuits," Michael Robertson, chief executive of Lindows, said in a statement.
The company is locked in a two-year-old legal battle with Microsoft, which says that the Lindows name is an infringement of its trademark for the Windows operating system. Lindows argues that the trademark is invalid, because "windows" is a generic computing term.
The US case, already delayed several times, is likely to go trial later this year. The judge overseeing that case has denied Microsoft's requests for an injunction that would bar Lindows from using the name. But the software giant has been more successful overseas, where judges in Finland, Sweden and the Netherlands all have granted such injunctions.
Linspire is similar in features and capabilities to the original open-source Lindows operating system and customers will not need to upgrade, the company said. All Lindows software products will carry the Linspire brand within two weeks, it said.
As of Wednesday, the Lindows.com site carries a prominent notice that "pending Lindows' appeal, visitors from the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg are not permitted to access the Lindows.com website or purchase Lindows products." The identical Linspire site carries the same message.
Talkback
when oh when are these mamby pamby airy fairy po faced judges going to stand up to M$ and tell them to go fry there nuts they are nothing but a bunch of gutless ball less fairys good at punishing the little person ie you and me little joe public but when it comes to a big wet arsed bunch of w*****s like M$ they run a frigging mile and wet there nappies on the way .
it is just totally wrong that ms are being fined and punished for being the best company in the world.
if they want to bundle office with windows or media player with windows or a firewall or zip software or whatever it doesn't matter, it is their os and their property to do what they like with it.
The judges should just stop interfering where they dont understand
Microsoft is not being fined and punished simply "for being the best company in the world". It's the anti-competitive practices that are being punished.
You see, Microsoft has a worldwide monopoly. And they're misusing it by forcing people to use IE, WMP, MS Office, and other Microsoft products. They are actually removing the option of using competitive software. This is the source of all the fines and antitrust suits against Microsoft.
Microsoft has brought the fines and antitrust suits on itself. If they would only lay down their improper business techniques and play fairly, all the lawsuits and fines would end.
I very much agree with the last post. And, after 20 years in the IT game I know Microsoft products are only the best solution when Microsoft bought the said product from someone else .
But in a 95% monoploy market this is a situation which wont change untill hardware is so cheap the core software has become a disposable item. Perhaps thats why MS are so keen on bloated, ineficient O/S's and applications which need truckloads of CPU.
Just cynical I suppose...