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Business Services Industry

TO BeOS OR NOT TO BeOS

Entrepreneur, August, 2000 by Amanda C. Kooser

Hey, Windows: There's a new kid in town--and it's not Linux.

It's not Windows and it's not Linux. It's not as popular, either, but you still might be seeing it soon.

Thanks to the recent Windows backlash and Linux upsurge, BeGS (www.be.com) has received quite a boost as another operating system alternative. BeOS features a user-friendly visual interface-not that surprising, because the founder is a former president of Apple's product division,Jean-Louis Gass[acute{e}]e. Similar to Linux, BeOS has some open-source components, meaning anyone can write software for them as long as they obey the rules. BeBits (www.bebits.com) catalogs the independent software for download.

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BeOS 5 Personal Edition is available as a free download; more than 550,000 copies were downloaded in the first week. It does, however, occupy 512MB of hard-drive space once it's installed. (Pay $70 and you can get BeOS Pro Edition.)

What makes Personal Edition BeGS so attractive to new users is that there's only one version (unlike the array of Linuxes and Windows), and it doesn't require you to partition your hard drive for installation-it coexists with Windows or Linux. It's also optimized to handle video and Internet media.

While it has good buzz and grassroots support, not all BeGS services are in place. Says BeGS developer Ben Wumick, "The big weaknesses are lack of drivers for certain hardware devices, although this is slowly improving, and lack of big-name polished applications, although this is also improving." BeGS may eventually find a niche in offices as a stable alternative to Windows, particularly for media applications.

The other half of the Be equation is BeIA for Internet appliances, a version streamlined for Internet surfing and media applications. This is the most likely place for Be to appear at the consumer level. Be recently announced an alliance with solopoint.com, a provider of home-communication broadband solutions, to create those appliances. For details, log on to BeNews (www.benews.com).

Business Services Industry

TO BeOS OR NOT TO BeOS

Entrepreneur, August, 2000 by Amanda C. Kooser

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