Linux for Old People?

Have you heard about the Telikin computer? It is basically an MSi-based all-in-one computer with a touch screen... keyboard and mouse. What is different is that they are marketing it to older people who are generally perceived as computer novices. Of course you don't have to be a senior citizen to be their target audience... any novice will do. Why am I bringing up the Telikin? Because as you probably already guessed, it runs Linux underneath... and no, it isn't Android-based. The underlying system is supposedly a fork of Tiny Core Linux.

Telikin Touch ComputerThe Telikin folks appear to have done a lot of work on a custom user interface where there is an applications menu on the left fifth of the screen and the applications appear on the right four-fifths. The menu never goes away. It is very reminiscent of a web site. They are selling the idea that their computer comes pre-loaded with all of the applications that a novice will ever need... and that the application launcher and all of the applications are easy to use yet fully functional. But where did these applications come from? They have the following listed on their site:

Home screen, Video chat, Photos, Email, Web Browsing, Calendar, Address Book, News, Weather, DVD player, CD player, Games, Write, Powerpoint, Tech Buddy, Video Help, Tools and Free Lifetime Updates.

I don't think Microsoft would be happy about them using the word "Powerpoint" when they aren't talking about Microsoft's application but rather the general class of presentation / slide deck software. I have to wonder if they have co-opted code from various free software projects or if they have completely written their own from scratch. I'm not suspicious or anything, I'm just curious. I mean, with the exception of the touch screen stuff, couldn't you just take their distro and load it on most any computer? Would they sell the software separately? So far as I can tell they are in the hardware market and the software is not available separately.

They also seem to be spending a bit on marketing because they have various videos where they were featured on programs like Rachael Ray, ABC News, various local news programs, etc.

Anyway, I just thought that it was interesting that a company was promoting a system for novices based on Linux. Who would have thunk?

Update: Looks like they do offer the sources for what they have to but that the vast majority of the UI is proprietary. See: http://www.telikin.com/open_source.php. Looking at the directories they have (http://repo.telikin.com/source/misc/), it appears they use LibreOffice code among other things.