Although it hasn't gained much attention in the media, a revolutionary computer is now on sale at your local Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT). For just $199, you can buy the Everex gPC TC2502, a powerful PC with a hook: it is designed to run without using any Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) products whatsoever. Instead of Windows and Word, you get Linux, OpenOffice and lots of Google Apps.

The computer itself is pretty impressive. Here's what you get for your $199: a 1.5GHz VIA C7 CPU, 512MB of memory, an 80GB disk, an Ethernet port, stereo speakers, and a DVD-ROM CD-RW drive. You also get an operating system called gOS and a full suite of software from OpenOffice.org. The operating system is specially designed to work with Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) applications like Gmail and Google Maps, and all software updates are free. The one thing you don't get is a monitor, but judging from the sidewalks of my neighborhood in Brooklyn, where working monitors routinely show up decorated with signs saying 'works perfectly!, please take,' that shouldn't be hard to remedy.

As the brief article about the new PC in The New York Times puts it, the Everex offers a good way to avoid paying the Microsoft Tax that comes with most news PCs. And so far, customers seem to be pleased. The computer's page on Wal-Mart's website is filled with rave reviews like this one: This is a great value, and shows why you don't need to run Windows to have a full featured PC that is easy to use. Software upgrades on this machine are FREE FOREVER. Try that on a windows box.

Everex is an interesting company. Based in Fremont, California, the company was a leading seller of backup tape for computers in the 1980s, but went into bankruptcy in1993. The company is now owned by Formosa Plastics Group, a $14 billion multinational conglomerate based in Taiwan. It has been producing low-cost PCs for 20 years, but has only recently joined the open-source crowd. Until now, Linux-driven open source computing has hardly threatened the Microsoft monopoly on PC operating systems, but if Wal-Mart can help Everex sell a few million computers during the holidays, then we may be seeing the first stages of a post-Microsoft personal PC future. Not likely, but at $199 and with a lot of positive word-of-mouth, this computer could begin to make a dent in ol' Mr. Softy.