OLPC to Run Windows, Come to the US

An anonymous reader writes "'Yesterday Nicholas Negroponte, former director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab and current head of the nonprofit One Laptop Per Child project, gave analysts and journalists an update on the OLPC project. Two big changes were announced — the $100 OLPC is now the $175 OLPC, and it will be able to run Windows. Even in a market where there are alternatives to using Windows and Office, there's a huge demand for Microsoft software. The OLPC was seen as a way for open source Linux distributions to achieve massive exposure in developing countries, but now Negroponte says that the OLPC machine will be able to run Windows as well as Linux. Details are sketchy but Negroponte did confirm that the XO's developers have been working with Microsoft to get the OLPC up to spec for Windows.' We also find out that the OLPC gets a price hike and will officially come to the US. Could this be tied into Microsoft's new $3 Windows XP Starter and Office 2007 bundle? Now that the OLPC and Intel's Classmate PC can both run Windows, is Linux in the developing world in trouble?"

Anti competitive move?

[nietsch]

If MS can charge $3 for their software, but in other venues charge more then 300 for nearly the same, can that be considered as anti-competitive dumping?
Let's just hope that the next US government will break up Bills empire and throw the upper management in jail.

If the price rises $75, that can be considered a $75 windos tax, that is 42%!

Additional Funding

[ntufar]

Good for OLPC and for Linux acceptance.

Consider: until now we have been running Linux on computers that were designed for Windows. With OLPC it will be the other way around: people will be able to run Windows on a computer designed for Linux! And this project will be partially funded by Microsoft. It is a huge publicity for Linux on Microsoft's expense.

Not News

[kripkenstein]

This is not news, despite the Slashdot headline and the ZDNet blog saying otherwise. Quite a while back we already heard [slashdot.org] from Negroponte that they had given some OLPC hardware to Microsoft, and that Microsoft was working on getting Windows to work on it. So this is not news in the simplest possible sense. Did anyone doubt that Microsoft would succeed in getting Windows to work on an OLPC? Of course not.

The question is not whether the OLPC can run Windows. The question is what OS will actually be used, which depends on the nations buying OLPCs. Last I heard it was too soon to tell about such details.

Re:Not News

[QuantumG]

The news is that Microsoft couldn't get Windows to run on it without getting the OLPC project to increase their hardware specs, and instead of just telling Microsoft to go jump, they compromised and now the laptop is going to cost more.

I said 'the news' there.. I guess I really should say 'the spin'.

Re:Vista?

[XScB]

C'mon. The OLPC is not a conventional PC nor notebook lacking a colour LCD, and a harddisk. This is going to be an embedded variant of Windows, with different features dropped.

Either Embedded Windows XP, or much, much more likely, Windows CE. And they'll still have to up the hw spec.

olpc breaks bounds on hardware - amazing

[Anonymous Coward]

I am using the olpc xo. (that is the name of the computer). The hardware is truly revolutionary. It is NOT just a small laptop, it is more rugged than a toughbook and as cute as an aibo. I have seen its effect on children. They immediately love it and treat it like a pet. (anthropomorphism?)

It is also a full on computer with a fantastic screen.

I am glad to see the opening of the hardware to other operating systems. The hardware needs to be commercially available so us geek developers can extend the software in thousands of ways. These extensions will greatly benefit the children of the developing world, and continue to bridge the divide as we all work together to build this educational tool.

That would be hysterical

[gelfling]

If MS came out and said there's now a way to run Windows on the cheapest lowest powered laptop you can find. Sorry about that massive investment you wasted.

Re:Bill Gates' criticism

[goombah99]

Bill will love the market share. But he may not like the rampant virus incubator that is created. 30 million unpatched copies of Windows are going to be 15 million more bots. Windows might get a black eye.

Re:Instant solution

[the Hewster]

Windows NT started on the Alpha processors, later was ported to x86. In recent years it was ported to x64 and Itanium (Itanium share nothing with x86 except the company that made them). Don't invent problems where there aren't.

The OS might be portable (at great cost) but none of the software that makes Windows a success would be ported (look at your own examples: what software could you get for Alpha and Itanium?) making it pretty useless. On the other hand, most OSS software is ported to pretty much all platforms.

Wow... No OS X?

[toQDuj]

They might as well have gone with Mac OS X then. I remember Jobs offering to give Mac OS X for free for installation on the OLPC's. At least that'd have been a proper OS.

I believe that Negroponte refused, with the argument that he wanted a truly open OS. Now they've gone with windows, I think his mind must be slipping..

B.

Re:The death of Linux on OLPC is greatly exaggerat

[Jeremy_Bee]

From here [laptop.org] and here [laptop.org]

True: Microsoft is working on a Windows based system that can be executed on the OLPC laptop.
False: There is no strategy change. The OLPC is continuing to develop a Linux-based software set for the laptop in conjunction with Red Hat. But since the OLPC project is open we cannot (and maybe even don't want to) stop other people from developing and supplying alternate software packages.

This statement makes no sense, (and the whole adoption of Windows argument Negroponte is using), in the context of the fact that Apple offered to give them a version of OS-X for the thing for FREE at the very beginning.

Apple was turned down on the basis that the laptop was all about the special open sourced based software. Now all of a sudden it's about that, but it's okay if it costs 75% more and runs a cut-rate version of Vista.

On the surface, it seems like Negroponte was certainly co-opted by Microsoft.

Re:Technically, no

[entropyfoe]

On my fast machine (2 gig ram dual boot), xubuntu boots faster than Win XP.

The desktop environment makes a big difference.
-Jay

Windows Mobile

[StarKruzr]

The ironic thing about WM is that if you have a keyboard and a fairly large screen (i.e., a COMPUTER), it's great. It is really not optimized for use on a device like a cell phone or PDA, though, as its control widgets are just too tiny.

That's really just a UI criticism, though. The kernel itself is great.

Re:Price of Dollar and System upgrades

[at_slashdot]

Which Windows, XP? Wasn't Microsoft supposed to cease "manufacturing" XP by the end of this year? Even XP is a dog on 256MB or RAM I want to see how they will put Vista on that, and if they want to stick with XP what's the support plan for XP?

Re:AND Slashdot's Criticism...

[mackyrae]

I've used one. It is a real computer,though the keyboard's not clicky (it's actually very squishy and very rubber, not even hard keycaps, but it's also probably waterproof which is good) and is extremely tiny (perfect for child fingers). I was a bit confused by the UI, but then I grew up on Windows and then switched go GNOME. It's an entirely different way of thinking about UI and how you interact with it. There are 3 touchpads. One controls the mouse, though I forget what the other two do. I do agree that they need food and water, but I think this is aimed more at areas where there are a lot of not-too-poor-for-school (you can be too poor for free school if the opportunity cost of school is a bunch of money you need to make at a job to feed your family) but still not rich enough to have a computer at home families. There are a lot of families here in the US which don't have computers. They have to use the ones at libraries. That can be a problem with research papers depending on the library. The one at home closes at 6 on Fridays and stays closed on weekends (may have added 10-2 on Saturdays). My school has a 24hr library, which gets used quite a bit. If your area doesn't have a 24hr library though, you have a very limited amount of time during which you can do research considering that you're in school more than half of the hours during which the library is open. For people who have a trailer-park-quality life, the OLPC would be perfect.

Re:Price of Dollar and System upgrades

[Jeffrey Baker]

The dollar has fallen quite a lot? Most of the components in the OLPC are from China or USA. Over the last two years the dollar has lost a whopping 6.6% against the yuan. So I seriously doubt that FX has been a major factor in the OLPC price.

Re:Why 256Mb? - falling for Microsofts tricks

[Locutus]

Windows supported now that they've increased processor power, and doubled RAM and Flash? WTF, they are falling for Microsofts tricks. This raises the price and delays the product launch so that Micrsoft has time to get its marketing team out there and either buy out prospective customers of OLPC or sells them on how a WindowsPC is better for their future with some kind of 'training' or kickback deal.

Sorry but this device does not need to run Windows and I'd already heard previously that the OLPC project had already increased the system cost once to enable 'Windows support' and now they've gone way overboard in both adding more onto the price AND delaying initial shipments.

Microsoft is NOT a partner unless you like being a partner of a Black Widow. IMO.

LoB

Re:Why 256Mb?

[rho]

Graffiti was originally a way to keep people from throwing their Newtons in the trash out of frustration because the handwriting recognition sucked so bad. It was later that Palm made a PDA around their program.

The Palm was a good PDA. It was less expensive, it was simple, and it did 90% of what 90% of PDA buyers needed. Your complaints about the PalmOS can be turned neatly around and claimed to be features.

That said, Graffiti2 sucks balls.

Re:Not News

[shish]

"wow, 128 extra megs of RAM and 512MB more hard disk space--THEY'RE SLEEPING WITH MICROSOFT!" nonsense

Links to microsoft aren't being drawn simply because they've upped the hardware, but because they've upped the hardware from "enough to give the kids a functional laptop" to "enough to run windows"

I bet some feel violated

[EmbeddedJanitor]

I expect there are many people who have contributed in some way to OLPC because they see this as an OSS project with a good cause.

Now that it is also going to be a vector for the Windows cancer will surely leave many people feeling violated. I know I do, and my contribution was tiny compatred with others.

I really believe that OLPC could be way better if it did not have to support Windows. For example, using an ARM instead of an x86 would have reduced cost and power consuumption.