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Macintosh team members take on Linux

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CIOL Bureau
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Back in 1984 they made history with the Apple Macintosh. Now four prominent

members of the original Macintosh developer team have reunited at a new Silicon

Valley start-up called Eazel and are trying to develop a version of the Linux OS

that common computer users can understand and work with intuitively.

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Eazel was founded last fall by Mike Boich and Andy Hertzfeld, two original

members of the Apple Macintosh team. Now two more Mac veterans, Susan Kare and

Guy Tribble, have joined the company. Tribble comes from Sun Microsystems where

he was chief technology officer for the Sun-Netscape alliance. "Eazel

intends to make Linux the desktop of choice for millions of people,"

Eazel’s Web site at www.eazel.com.

"To achieve this, we are creating next generation user interface software

and services designed to make Linux easier to use." Eazel has received

financial backing from Ron Conway, a well-known Silicon Valley venture

capitalist as well as from Mike Homer, a former executive at Netscape and Apple,

and Bud Colligan, the former chairman of Macromedia.

Eazel wants to develop a new graphical -- point-and-click ­ user-interface

for Linux to manage files and folders, so Linux will be as simple to use as the

Macintosh or Windows, if not easier. The complexities involved in installing the

Linux OS and running applications, remains one of the main obstacles in

popularizing the OS on the desktop. Unless the software becomes more intuitive,

it is likely destined to remain a server-oriented solution in which it will host

files, applications, Web sites, e-mail and other functions. Eazel’s efforts

are paralleling those by non-profit Linux groups such as the GNOME Project and

KDE. Eazel is reportedly working closely with the GNOME group as part of its

development effort.

Analysts said they enormous technical expertise and vast experience of the

Eazel team in developing and marketing user-friendly OS solutions gives the

company perhaps the best shot yet at succeeding in making Linux a viable desktop

alternative to Windows.

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