Microsoft has finally completed the OLPC version of Windows XP, the company has announced. The scaled-down operating system has been released to manufacturing, and is being installed on select versions of the OLPC group's XO notebook, intended mainly for schools in poor countries. The computer uses bare-bones components to reduce cost to approximately $200, such as a smaller screen and flash-based program storage.

The computer also normally runs a Linux variant called Sugar, which is not only extremely simplified but effectively free. This may have posed a threat to Microsoft, which has always sold Windows at varying prices and would stand to lose out on a new market if it could not deliver a marketable OS for OLPC-type systems. The company notes, though, that XP will not be available for people who bought an XO through the Give 1 Get 1 Program.