MSI has announced its own instant OS which goes under the name of Winki, which might not be the best of names as it rimes with a fair few things we can think of. Anyhow, the OS itself is installed on a USB DOM (Disk on Module) which is installed on a USB pin-header on certain MSI motherboards.

Winki is Linux based and supports 15 different languages. Winki comes with Firefox, Skype and a multi-IM application called Pidgin pre-installed. Apart from that it's not clear what applications will be included with Winki when it ships.

Initially Winki seems to only be for desktop systems, although we'd expect MSI to tailor it to work with its netbooks as well. The question is how popular the instant on OS's really are and we can't say that we've ever felt the need of having this. As long as the cost of the USB DOM isn't too high, this might appeal to certain customers, especially those that want a simple OS with internet access and doesn't want to pay for Windows.

You can find the press release here