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OLPC Laptop Gets Windows

One Laptop per Child inks a deal with Microsoft to put Windows on the "100-dollar" machine.

By David Talbot

Friday, May 16, 2008

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Yesterday, in a long-expected but controversial move, officials of the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) project announced that their green-and-white machines, designed for children in developing countries, would run Microsoft Windows as well as the project's novel Linux-based interface. In an interview two weeks ago, the project's founder, Nicholas Negroponte, said that the move was necessary to enable the mass global acceptance of the machine, something he had long predicted.

Credit: OLPC, with screenshot added by Technology Review

OLPC's laptop will be available in a "dual-boot" configuration, with customers able to choose either operating system. "The people who make decisions on what to buy are not the kids," Negroponte said. "They are ministers and executives. They are very comfortable with a laptop that they know. The fact that the machine can do both is a huge advantage. Plus, you have a huge developer community that does software that works on Windows."

The decision adds cost to the laptop. To carry a second operating system, the machine will require more memory, which will cost an extra $7, even if Windows is never booted up. And any government that does choose to boot up Windows will pay Microsoft an additional $3 per machine in licensing fees. For those using Windows, the final cost will be $198, up from today's $188. (The costs will be higher for five unnamed countries in which Windows-ready machines will receive a trial run. For those machines, an extra memory drive was added at a cost of about $20.)

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The move to adopt Windows is the latest twist in the sometimes turbulent story of the project. OLPC is a nonprofit organization founded in 2005 by Negroponte and others from MIT's Media Lab, with the goal of building a laptop computer that was rugged, usable, and inexpensive enough to reach millions of poor children in the developing world. As recently as 2006, Negroponte was predicting sales of more than 100 million machines by this year. But OLPC's flagship XO machine has not caught fire in the global marketplace. So far, about 500,000 machines have been delivered, mostly to Uruguay and Peru.

Until now, the XO has employed a custom user interface called Sugar, built on the open-source Linux operating system. OLPC's ex-president Walter Bender--who resigned last month in protest over the impending Microsoft deal and was replaced by Charles Kane, OLPC's finance chief--announced yesterday that he was launching a foundation, the Sugar Labs Foundation, to advance Sugar, which he helped to develop.

Tags

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Comments

  • Microsloth strikes
    Well who didn't see this coming, I guess MS couldn't stand to see developing countries using something other than there software,(yes i understand that the respective heads of these countries had a say) Imagine an entire countries children using a version of LINUX.
    My question Is have these computers EVER sold for $100??
    Rate this comment: 12345

    sambob223
    05/18/2008
    Posts:1
    Avg Rating:
    4/5
  • To paraphrase a great man: "Noooooooooooo!"
    Why are they hikeing the price to add an OS that will hardly run on the box and will likely be unusable if it does run due to crashes/slowness?

    On top of that, windows is trying to make money off this?! they are charging licensing fees to a completely non-profit movement to better the standard of education in developing countries...

    I applaud Walter Bender stepping down over this and completely agree with him on it.
    Rate this comment: 12345

    Shiladie
    05/18/2008
    Posts:55
    Avg Rating:
    4/5
  • The laptops will also come with a Happy Meal and a toy
    Great! Let's help children in developing countries become tomorrow's Microsoft whores.
    Rate this comment: 12345

    DaemonischEn...
    05/19/2008
    Posts:2
    Avg Rating:
    4/5
  • The silver lining is...
    ...it's getting more memory, which it will still have even if they delete Windows from the hard drive.
    Rate this comment: 12345

    Monsterboy
    05/19/2008
    Posts:89
    Avg Rating:
    4/5
  • The good news is.....
    Now people in developing nations with little or no computer experience will learn all about the wonderous BSOD.

    And I quote...."I may have invented Control-Alt-Delete, but Bill Gates made it famous."
    Rate this comment: 12345

    netmajic
    05/22/2008
    Posts:1

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