Lindows Settles with Microsoft, Plans IPO

Privately held software maker Lindows will change its name to Linspire under the terms of an agreement with Microsoft(MSFT), the company said Monday in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

In the same filing, Lindows also detailed its plans to go public in a deal valued at up to $48.4 million. It will offer 4.4 million shares priced in a range of $9 to $11. The deal is being led by Roth Capital Partners, JMP Securities, Merriman Curhan Ford & Co., and Kaufman Brothers. Lindows plans to trade on the Nasdaq under the ticker "LINE."

The agreement winds down litigation that first began three years ago when Microsoft went to court complaining that Lindows sounded too much like its flagship Windows software. In the SEC filing, Lindows said it will receive $20 million in payments from Microsoft in exchange for giving up its name.

In a statement, Lindows CEO Michael Robertson said that over the next few months Lindows will "cease using the term Lindows and transition to Linspire globally as our company name and primary identifier for our operating system product."

Tom Burt, corporate vice president and deputy general counsel for Microsoft, said the Redmond, Wash.-based software titan is "pleased that Lindows will now compete in the marketplace with a name distinctly its own."

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