Presto ‘instant-on’ operating system enters beta

Another competitor has thrown its hat into the ‘instant-on’ OS arena. Xandros has announced that ‘Presto’ has entered beta stage and is being offered as a free download until its retail release on April 13th at which point it will cost $19.95. The OEM version of Presto has already been out for a while, but this is the first time the consumer version has been released for beta. Read more

MSI Winki, instant OS coming to Wind netbooks soon

MSI has announced it’s own instant-on operating system called Winki, based on the Linux kernel. Whilst MSI has only talked about Winki in terms of desktop computers, we would be very surprised if Winki did not appear in some of its upcoming Wind netbooks. Both Acer and Asus are expected to feature the HyperSpace instant-on OS in upcoming netbooks and MSI doesn’t want to be left behind.

Typically, these instant-on OSes take a few seconds to boot, but the start up time is still up to 40% shorter than that using a Windows XP-based machine. However, MSI feels it is onto a winner, “Winki’s greatest ability is how it compares to other OS supported devices: it starts up faster, uses less electricity, will not have problems caused by virus and, best of all, and does not cost customers a penny more”, said MSI in a staement. Winki will come with Firefox, Skype and a multi-IM application called Pidgin pre-installed. It also supports 15 different languages. The Winki is likely to debut in a netbook that will be focused largely on web browsing, photo sharing and VoIP calls. No release date has yet been announced. The full press release is available after the jump.

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