Some people have asked me when/if I will ever stop developing Linspire/Freespire/Xandros. My answer has always been, when there is no need for me to do it. As I approach 50 the curtain call is inevitable. Time is that inevitable thing that we have no control over. So is that time now? No. Of course not.
There are very few companies aside from us and Canonical who focus on the commercial desktop space. Most enterprise Linux companies focus on servers. As much as people hate when I say this, ChromeOS and Android are NOT Linux distributions. They use the Linux kernel. That is it. The rest of it is proprietary to Google. We compete with them for customers and yes Google has been very successful. We do sell a TON of Chromebooks, Chromeboxes and Chromebases to our Education and some enterprise customers but the installed base for Linspire is nothing to cackle at.
But, back to when it is time for Linspire to hang up its hat. That time will come when something comes along that makes us irrelevant in the commercial desktop space. From the demand for our products and from our customers we are nowhere near that point. The closest would be ChromeOS/ChromeOS Flex. We had 20 of our customers pilot ChromeOS Flex. We helped them with setup and testing. How many dropped Linspire and adopted ChromeOS Flex? 3 of them. We still help them. We provide them with support and we test new and old systems they want to deploy to make sure Flex runs well and there are no issues.
Three customers, is nowhere near the threshold that would make me fold up shop and become a Google house. Nowhere close. Now as time goes on and Flex gets better. The Linux support gets better and if/when Android apps come to it THEN we will reevaluate our position. The approach of PWA's with offline capabilities is becoming very attractive to businesses and to our industry. Even Microsoft's apps are becoming PWA's and I think the ChromeOS model is one that will succeed in the near future. The security model, the method of digesting apps, and the infrastructure is far more powerful to users and consumers than what most people give them credit for. Hell, there have been some murmurs that Windows 12 will ship in S mode by default. You will only be able to install apps that have been vetted by Microsoft from their app store and with those being "sandboxed" and not being able to touch the core system will take Windows to the next level in terms of security. Of course they will have to find some way to make a "developer mode" available but that is on them to figure that out IF they go that route.
As for Linspire. Businesses and consumers want that traditional desktop experience. Businesses want to control their data whether that is local storage or creating a private cloud. Not a lot of businesses and especially Government agencies want to trust their data to public clouds. So as long as there is a need for the traditional desktop experience for businesses, education, government agencies and consumers. Linspire will continue to exist. So when the need for a traditional commercial desktop system ceases to exist that is when it's time to quit.
