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Microsoft;s participation in the One Laptop computer Per Kid (OLPC) initiative is fraught with mystery and disinformation through the get-go. But on May fifteen, Microsoft officials finally gave the OLPC project Redmond;s official blessing.
Up to this level, OLPC Chief Nicholas Negroponte preannounced Microsoft;s each and every move around the OLPC front (and occasionally not fairly correctly). But on May fifteen, Microsoft along with the OLPC announced in tandem that Microsoft is “joining” the OLPC venture.
Yet again, exactly what this means is a bit murky. Microsoft may be testing for months now whether it could get XP to run on OLPC XO laptops. Seemingly, according to a new blog entry by James Utzschneider, Manager of Microsoft’s Developing Markets Unit General Manager, Marketing and Communications, Unlimited Potential Group, the tests were successful. But now it sounds like there are going to become more tests. From Utzschneider;s Could possibly 15 blog post:
“Today Microsoft and the OLPC are announcing support for Windows about the OLPC XO personal computer.The two organizations will work together on several pilot programs in emerging market countries starting next month, and also the offering will RTM in August or September. Initially it will only be available in emerging market countries where governments or NGOs are subsidizing the purchase of a large number of PCs for students,Office Professional Plus 2010, but there is the possibility of making this available for other customers through a broader set of channels at a later point in time.”
(A company spokeswoman clarified: These new trials are “substantial” ones. Her full statement: “In December we said Microsoft would begin limited field trials in January together with the hopes of widespread availability in the second half of 2008. The announcement today of fields trials in June concerns substantial field trials.”)
Today;s official announcement follows much public hand-wringing (and some resignations) by former OLPC members over Negroponte;s decision to allow Windows to be ported to the XOs. There;s been much speculation as to whether Negroponte had agreed to allow Windows to supplant completely Linux on these machines.
I asked the aforementioned spokeswoman whether we;d see any Windows-only OLPCs. Her answer:
“Laptops will be installed with 1 of two operating systems - Microsoft Windows OR Linux-based Sugar OS at the factory,Windows 7 64 Bit, based on the preference of governments and NGOs. Inside the case of these trials, the XOs will ship with Windows. In addition to these choices, in the future OLPC intends to develop … the ability to have both about the same machine.”
The OLPC initiative has turn out to be a political battleground, with some Linux backers advocating that the group should mandate that Linux be the only operating system available around the machines, in order to give it an advantage over Windows inside the developing world.
The “purity” issue is a complex one. Ivan Krstic, Former Director of Security Architecture for OLPC (who resigned in March of this year), has an interesting post about the tensions between Windows and Linux inside the OLPC arena. An excerpt from his May well 13 post that caught my eye:
“OLPC should be philosophically pure about its own machines. Being a non-profit that leverages goodwill from a tremendous number of community volunteers for its success and whose core mission is 1 of social betterment,Windows 7 Download, it has a great deal of social responsibility. It should not grow to be a vehicle for creating economic incentives for a particular vendor. It should not believe the nonsense about Windows being a requirement for business after the children grow up. Windows is a requirement because enough people grew up with it,Windows 7 64 Bit, not the other way around. If OLPC made a billion people grow up with Linux, Linux would be just dandy for business. And OLPC shouldn’t make its sole OS 1 that cripples the really hardware that supposedly set the project’s laptops apart: released versions of Windows can neither make good use of the XO power management, nor its full mesh or advanced display capabilities.”
Microsoft;s Utzschneider,Windows 7 Home Premium, not surprisingly, has a different take, claiming that there are governmental and nongovernmental users in developing nations who actually like, want and require Windows on these machines.
Bottom line: Whether Linux backers want it or not, Windows XP (not the more resource-intensive Vista) is coming to an XO laptop out there this year.