Linux is not one company's product, but a number of companies and groups of people contribute to it. In fact, the GNU/Linux system is a core component, which is branched off into many different products. They are called distributions.

Distributions change the appearance and function of Linux completely. They range from large, fully supported complete systems (developed by companies) to lightweight ones that fit on a USB memory stick or run on old computers (often developed by volunteers).
A prominent, complete and friendly distribution to step into GNU/Linux is Ubuntu.

GNU/Linux is no harder to use than Windows®, and has many more capabilities. It just takes a dozen minutes to get familiar with a distribution like Ubuntu or Fedora, which come in with many programs installed. If you need commercial-quality software to work with business documents, internet/networking, or multimedia and graphics, it's there right out of the box. Want more than that? Linux can do – there are many hundreds of free, high quality applications you can find, install and uninstall neatly and easily