Windows XP ready for OLPC notebooks
updated 12:40 pm EDT, Fri July 25, 2008
Windows XP for OLPC done
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.
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Nov 1999
MS marketing PR article?
Um "effectively free". Sugar is ACTUALLY FREE. Effectively free would mean something like pay them a dollar for each copy, and they give you a rebate of a dollar 6 weeks later.
And the "extremely simplified" comment is a nice dig, especially with how complex Windows XP is.
And how much do the children have to pay Microsoft for this crippled version of XP?