'$100 Laptop' Project Teams With Microsoft

by Jarrett Martineau | May 15, 2008 at 09:57 pm

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The One Laptop Per Child project has undergone all kinds of trials and tribulations, both in terms of its price and functionality, and its public perception.

OLPC has long been wary of trying to integrate a Microsoft operating system into its "XO" computers, however, this week it appears that a compromise may yet be reached that would allow the $100 computers to run either OLPC's proprietary Sugar OS, or Microsoft's Windows.

As such, a rift has developed between supporters of each OS and there are growing concerns that education may no longer be OLPC's top priority.

The One Laptop Per Child project is about to find out whether Microsoft Corp., a rival the nonprofit group once derided, is the solution to its problems in spreading inexpensive portable computers to schoolchildren.

Microsoft and the laptop organization announced Thursday that the nonprofit's green-and-white "XO" computers now can run Windows in addition to their homegrown interface, which is built on the open Linux operating system. That had been anticipated for months, but it amounts to a major shift.

Nicholas Negroponte, the founder of the laptop project — which aims to produce $100 computers but now sells them at $188 — acknowledged that having Windows as an option could reassure education ministers who have hesitated to buy XOs with its new interface, called Sugar. Negroponte had hoped to sell several million laptops by now; instead he has gotten about 600,000 orders.

Beginning in limited runs next month, XO buyers will have the option of computers loaded with or without Windows. Versions with Windows will cost $18 to $20 more; $3 of that is for Windows, and the rest covers hardware adjustments, like an additional memory-card slot, needed to make Windows run.

Negroponte indicated last month that eventually, Windows could be the sole operating system, with Sugar serving as educational software running on top of it. But he said Thursday he does not envision that happening.

Still, a key question will be whether having Windows on the laptops means children make less use of Sugar, one of the project's core innovations. Recently a splinter group formed to keep up development of Sugar, and Negroponte is enduring complaints that education is no longer his top priority.