<span class="gmail_quote"></span><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=202601773">http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=202601773</a><br><br>Microsoft Says Windows May Soon Be On XO Laptop
<br><br>The low-cost laptop computer for poor children currently runs on rival<br>Linux software.<br><br>By Reuters<br>InformationWeek<br>October 25, 2007 07:00 PM<br><br>BOSTON - Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) has made progress in getting its
<br>Windows software to work on a low-cost laptop computer for poor<br>children that currently runs on rival Linux software, an executive<br>said Thursday.<br><br>The world's largest software company is now working to adapt a basic
<br>version of Windows XP so it is compatible with the non-profit One<br>Laptop per Child Foundation's small green- and-white XO laptop.<br><br>"We're spending a non-trivial amount of money on it," Microsoft
<br>Corporate VP Will Poole said in an interview Thursday. "We're working<br>hard. But we're still at least a few months away."<br><br>The One Laptop per Child Foundation, a spin-off from the Massachusetts
<br>Institute of Technology, plans to start producing the $188 machines in<br>China next month and eventually manufacture millions a year for<br>elementary school children in developing countries in Asia, Africa and<br>Latin America.
<br><br>The foundation is also selling the machines in the United States and<br>Canada for $400 apiece through a fundraising campaign.<br><br>The laptops were designed specifically to run Linux programs. If the<br>machines run only Linux, Microsoft will lose an opportunity to expose
<br>tens of millions of children worldwide to its Windows system.<br><br>"We've made progress," Poole said.<br><br>If the foundation is able to meet its goal of producing millions of<br>laptops for school children around the world and they are all loaded
<br>with Linux software, then they would end up being more comfortable<br>with those programs than with Windows, said Wayan Vota, who publishes<br>a blog that monitors the project. (<a href="http://olpcnews.com/">http://olpcnews.com/
</a>).<br><br>"People will realize there is an alternative to Windows and they might<br>like it better," Vota said."<br><br>Originally dubbed the $100 laptop, which is the group's target price<br>for the machine, the XO features a string pulley to charge its
<br>battery, a keyboard that switches between languages, a digital video<br>camera and wireless connectivity.<br><br>The laptop's designer, Mary Lou Jepsen, said in an interview earlier<br>this month she expects the price to drop in the first quarter of next
<br>year because prices of memory tend to fall dramatically during that<br>period.<br><br>The computer requires just 2 watts of power compared with the typical<br>laptop's 30 to 40 watts and does away with hard drives, relying
<br>instead on flash memory and four USB ports to add memory devices.<br><br>The XO laptop's component makers include Advanced Micro Devices Inc<br>and Marvell Technology Group Ltd. Software maker Red Hat Inc helped<br>
develop the device. Quanta Computer Incwill manufacture it.<br><br>The foundation will start taking orders for its Give 1 Get 1 campaign<br>on Nov. 12 at <a href="http://www.laptopgiving.org">http://www.laptopgiving.org</a>
.<br><br>By: Jim Finkle<br><br>Copyright 2007 Reuters. Click for Restrictions<br><br>As per CMP's agreement with Reuters, this story will be removed from<br>this site after 30 days.<br>--<br>Frederick Noronha <a href="http://fn.goa-india.org">
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