Loaded Box Delivers Linux Smoothie

Balsam Professional 12.1, the latest incarnation of open-slx's Linux distribution exactly targeting home and small business users, will be available on November 11, 2011. The box product earlier known as „openSUSE Box" or „openSUSE Retail Edition" gained new and in a class by itself features triggering the current rebrand. A first for a full-scale end user distribution available in retail, Balsam Professional 12.1 supports multiple device classes with a common base system: conventional desktops and notebooks, and additionally, featuring Plasma Active ONE, now as well touch controlled tablet pcs, hybrid netbooks and in future other mobile devices. Users receive with their Balsam Professional 12.1 purchase 90 day installation support by phone, e-mail or chat free of charge and can join the friendly open-slx community platform to socialize with fellow users and the open-slx team.

Balsam Professional 12.1 delivers a comprehensive, one-stop Linux operating system and applications package for home and small business users, providing a single base system across all suitable devices, from conventional desktops and notebooks to cutting edge hybrid netbooks and tablets. open-slx executes hereby a first step along an evolutionary path of delivering a cross-device, connected compute and online environment, easy to configure and use, and supplemented with high-quality support services and a friendly user community.

„Buyers of our product rightly expect to receive significant added value over freely available download releases and their reproduction by certain book publishers", explains Stefan Werden, General Manager at open-slx GmbH. „Factors for our success are highest product quality, which we as producers can ascertain ourselves, paired with first-class support, provided individually by us or through our helpful community. Furthermore, our clients recognize", Werden continues, "that notably we, as a smaller business, reinvest enormously in open source projects, especially if these, just as KDE Plasma Active, create exciting innovations for end users."

Elegant solution for small screens

„Plasma Active is not only an elegant solution for small screens, however also for screens of any size. Not by any standards, it's an example of effective desktop design", applauds Bruce Byfield in Datamation [1]. And Steven Vaughan-Nichols writes in his blog on ZDNet [2]: „If another group was trying to take on Android and Apple's iOS on smartphones and tablets, I'd dismiss them. [...] Yet," Steven closes, „I've learned over the years not to bet against the KDE team." Plasma Active, developed as part of the KDE project, is sponsored by the co-founders open-slx and basysKom.

Balsam Professional 12.1 is delivered in an attractively styled retail box containing two DVD media with over 17 GB of software for any imaginable need, featuring applications for office productivity and graphics, multimedia and internet access, communications and social networks, down to development and virtualization tools. This comprehensive, one-stop product is supplemented by without warning installable commercial add-on software just as graphics drivers, Adobe Reader and Flash Player, antivirus software Antivir, Moneyplex, Opera browser, Skype and SpiderOak online backup. The retail box includes a printed Quick Start Guide with detailed installation instructions and guidance for initial steps with the system and some of its applications.

Support available to purchasers of Balsam Professional 12.1 is nothing short of exceptional: registered users can contact the experienced and helpful open-slx support staff directly by phone, e-mail or chat with their individual questions to receive 90 day installation support free of charge, effectively protecting their privacy from anonymous mailing lists and internet chat rooms. To boot, open-slx's wiki contains extensive guides and useful tips on numerous topics and open-slx's forum provides assistance from fellow users and open-slx staff.

Balsam Professional 12.1, priced at 69,90 EUR and distributed in English and German language versions worldwide through open-slx's reseller network, is available as a boxed retail product from many online shops and in some retail stores in selected countries as of November 11, 2011.

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