THE FOUNDER of Lindows, Michael Robertson, has penned a piece on techzone in which he alleges that Microsoft is using its vast financial resources to block his firm's OS being sold by retailers.

And that means one Lindows OS retailer is being wooed with a price of just $50 for Windows XP in an attempt to wean it off the competition.

Robertson claims in the article that Microsoft routinely offers money to companies to not use the Lindows OS or resell it.

He adds in the article that for Microsoft "it's an easy decision" to use several million dollars to stop the retailers carrying the Lindows OS.

And he gives an example. TigerDirect, he said, has sold thousands of Lindows computers in the last few months, but he claims the firm had emails and phone calls from Microsoft offering money to stop the direct mail house selling these kind of computers.

And, he adds, the latest offer means TigerDirect could sell Microsoft Windows XP for just $50, less than the largest OEM customers.