OS GUI

The following interview was conducted by e-mail during the past week. Questions by Jason Prince; answers from Mike Hjorleiffsson, President of Element Computer, and Jason Spisak, Element’s Vice President Marketing (and former Lycoris Markting VP). 13 May 2004

The following interview was conducted by e-mail during the past week. Questions by Jason Prince; answers from Mike Hjorleiffsson, President of Element Computer, and Jason Spisak, Element’s Vice President Marketing (and former Lycoris Markting VP).

Can you tell us a bit about Element? What are the goals of the company?

Jason: Element is small company out of New York, that is focused on creating Linux hardware solutions for small and medium business. Element started out as a Linux only OEM selling Lycoris on our devices.

Mike: We've since moved to offering an Apple-like combination of our own tailored distribution, ION, so that we can ensure a top-shelf customer experience. We know the hardware, and hence we can eliminate many of the problems people experience with Linux right off the bat. Plus the TCO of an Element solution running ION is thousands less than a Windows solution using MS Licensing v.6. That's tangible to small and medium business.

What products and services do you offer?

Jason: Currently we offer mobile devices such as laptops and tablets. But we also have an LCD-PC, all-in-one desktop computer. It's much like a laptop, only with a base and a bit more expandability.

Mike: Our line of small business servers, named Fusion, will be out this summer, allowing turn-key operation for business processes, including: FTP/HTTP/email, groupware, accounting, resource planning, and management of all "ION-ised" hardware on your network. It has intrusion detection and firewalling built-in, plus is a wireless access point.

Jason: Hot stuff. And it's all powered by ION, our own Linux-based OS that is built on the Xandros Desktop Framework.

What is ION exactly? What markets is it intended for?

Mike: ION is designed for mobile business. ION is not a from-scratch effort, but a solution built on the Xandros Desktop Framework. We've further simplified and unified the user experience, as well as changed a few of the default applications, most notably the Gecko-based FireFox browser, and made a theme for it. Xandros does a great job at fitting into business environments, and that's where ION powered devices are targeted.

Jason: As you know from my work at Lycoris, I'm big on user experience. Linux can go a long way in business if we ease the percieved changes for the user, and make them see it as a professional product. When we do that, users almost feel like "Oh, this looks great, it's polished, I can use this". For example, I created an entirely new icon set for ION called Parchment. The goal was to make icons that were as simple and symbolic as possible to sharply reduce the learning curve. It makes a difference.

How long has ION itself been in development for?

Mike: Debian had been in dev for something like 8 years, KDE for 5, Gecko for 8 or more, and Xandros for 3 or more. This is time-tested stuff. ION itself has been in development for about a year.

What changes and enhancements have you made to the software that comprises ION? How is ION easier to use than standard Debian and KDE?

Jason: Usability. That's what we do. We pre-install everything, so there is no 'installation' process. Everything just works. The recovery CD can restore your system in about 10 minutes. We've simplified the Launch menu and sub-menus, changed some toolbars, and re-worked the file dialog to give users access to the 'familiar' places with a single click. For example, users can access their Windows network from inside the file dialog, just like it was part of the native file system.

What key applications are included in ION, and how have you customized them specifically? What kernel version are you using – 2.6 or 2.4?

Mike: I think we're the first distribution to ship with FireFox as the default browser, to my knowledge, and we've customized a theme for that and setup all the plugins. ION currently uses the 2.4 kernel with a move to 2.6 planned as quickly as testing will allow – mostly to take advantage of the more advanced power management.

Why didn’t you just use Xandros as is? Isn’t this duplication of effort just a waste of time?

Mike: We originally shipped Lycoris with our units, but we didn't get good customer response and the support we received was not up to our standards. We tested SUSE, Lindows, Xandros, Mepis, Mandrake, Knoppix, Morphix, all of them. We even negotiated with several companies. But in the end, none of them could offer us the 'per model' software changes that we need to offer things like Unbreakable Upgrades. To them, a distribution is a "one disc fit's" all thing. To us, ION is an OS that changes with the hardware model and is specific to it.

Jason: For example, if you don't need the driver for a given sound card in your laptop, why ship it to you? Why clutter your hard drive with modules, options and software you will never use? Your ION is the perfect match for your Element Computer, and in the end, no other vendor would do that, or should, since it's not their business model.

Aside from the support issues, what other factors influenced your choice of Xandros?

Jason: Xandros has better hardware recognition, easy wizards, and a great over-all attention to detail for the business environment.

Will ION be available for the general public to download, even in an unsupported format?

Mike: Element isn't a software company, so we won't offer the OS separately. But the source for any open licensed modified programs will always be available from our FTP tree on the website once ION is released.

Jason: Actually, we also call out and link to the projects that we use in ION to give them and their developers credit. It's important for the millions of people who hit our website since our MSNBC coverage to see that those building blocks are live, vibrant, open source projects. More attention for them means more interest in open source on a broader level, which in turn benefits Element. It's a reciprocal relationship.

Where can we get the source code for your products?

Jason: When ION has been released, you will be able to download the source code from our FTP mirror, which will be accessible from our website under the Source section.

What is the difference between IONm and IONt?

Mike: IONm is ION for mobile devices. Tablets use IONt, which has touch screen support, keyboard-less input, and gesture recognition.

Have you used open source code to make these features work? I wasn't aware such code existed.

Mike: In most cases, we have. Some touch screen drivers are not purely open source, I believe. But most of it is. The integration is the key thing on a tablet. Getting everything working in harmony.

What support is available for ION users?

Jason: Outstanding Support! Outstanding Support is a combination of 3 things: Instant Help, Unbreakable Upgrades and Snap recovery tools. Since Element is business-focused, we know you can't run a business on forum support, or mailing lists. We have a facility in the OS called Instant Help. It let's users engage in live chat with a technical support engineer instantly. At the moment, it is available during business hours, but will be 24/7/365 later this year. You should try it, because you'll be amazed. In fact there is Sales Chat available on our site to answer customer questions. Check it out – it's the same technology.

What are Unbreakable Upgrades, and how do they work, with apt? What GUI do you use, Synaptic or something like Click-n-Run?

Mike: The concept of Unbreakable Upgrades stems less from the 'tool' used, which is apt-get with a GUI, at the moment it is Synaptic, but more from the fact that we control the hardware and the software.

Jason: So unlike the Dell I used to own, where Windows Update would be entirely clueless and stomp on things the Dell needed, or break things, Element Computers are more like and Macs, where the OS update is conscious of what hardware model you have and the software that gets delivered is tailored to your machine.

Mike: No other Linux vendor can offer that in a standard OEM situation. Think of it like, Element Computers have their own unique apt tree. Ingenious!

So is ION compatible with packages from one of the Debian apt trees?

Mike: Sure. We just don't support the Do-It-Yourself stuff through Outstanding Support since they aren't our packages.

Are you intending to offer StarOffice to your customers instead of OpenOffice.org at some point? StarOffice is much better supported by Sun and has some business-friendly add-ons like a database program and additional clipart.

Jason: Absolutely. It will be offered as part of our Synergy Software Manager in our fully supported section. Just to clarify, the Do-It-Yourself section of Synergy is free, while the applications in the fully supported section have a price for the support.

How does Instant Help work? Is it an IRC channel or instant messenger or similar?

Mike: It is live web-based chat.

When people run out of support incidents, what then? Do you plan to have free user forums or similar?

Jason: Instant Help is designed to make businesses feel secure about making the switch to Linux, specifically ION-powered devices, for their mobile desktops. If the business doesn't want support from Element, there are plenty of Linux and KDE forums out there, and we've even approached some of them about having a place for our user-base to gather.

Mike: But, since Element is business focused, we're not going to push forums. We think its too easy to use forums as a crutch, or an excuse not to give proper full support. Element is committed to giving Outstanding Support.

Given that support is an important factor when evaluating TCO, what will additional support cost customers?

Mike: A fraction of what they pay now. Right now, to chat with Microsoft, is more like 'outrageous support'. Even to chat with a support centre that a business would have on contract generally runs in to the thousands for 5-10 users. Element offers a single user, Outstanding Support upgrade to 24 full months, with 24 incidents – that's double what each ION powered computer comes with – for just $150.

How does your restoration CD work? Is the process graphical? What open-source code have you used here?

Mike: We use mondo, and it is a graphical tool, yes. It restores your system software to perfect factory condition.

I wasn't aware that mondo was graphical. What code have you used to make it graphical?

Mike: Graphical, as in an on screen prompt, not a GUI. It restores the computer, so there are no choices to be made. There is a graphical backup utility inside ION though.

What documentation comes with ION? Open source documentation is sometimes not ideal.

Jason: We are in talks to offer the high quality Linux books that are available on topics like Debian, KDE, OpenOffice.org and the other primary open source projects in ION. Of course, Xandros is also well documented, so there is no shortage of information on using the pieces of ION, for instance, the Control Center.

When will ION-powered products be available for purchase?

Mike: You can pre-purchase them today, for delivery by June 1st. We've had strong demand, which back-ordered the Helium 2100, and that's all part of launching a great new company.

Will Element products be available for purchase in other countries, such as Australia and New Zealand?

Mike: We are currently shipping worldwide. Element Hardware Service doesn't have a local depot in those countries yet, but it is definitely on the short list.

Thank you for doing this interview..

 

You can find out more about Element Computer and ION by visiting their website, www.elementcomputer.com. Additional screenshots of ION are available here.

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