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Microsoft Takes On the OLPC
A number of readers sent us links to a BBC story on Microsoft's plan to provide the "Microsoft Student Innovation Suite" for $3 to governments around the world, for use in schools. The suite contains Windows XP Starter Edition and Windows Office Home and Student 2007, along with other educational software. To qualify, a government would have to provide free PCs to schools. Microsoft's stated goal is to double the number of PCs in use (and running Windows). An unbiased observer might wonder about an agenda of slowing the OLPC project and the spread of open source in general.
Hardware requirements? Need to dump old 'inventory' for a tax break? No compelling features?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
So no Third World Countries can get MS software super cheap - just like before, but now with real licenses! Hooray. Also, they will need to spend $x more on hardware! On the otherhand, they can go with the variety of people working very hard to provide them cheap hardware and free software. Tough Choice.
One could make the argument that you're not unbiased.
However....even paranoids have enemies, and just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you.
It innovates nothing but new ways of taking money from computer users while frustrating them in what they want to do. /2p
I don't understand how this "observer" would be unbiased. If he sees a grand conspiracy, he's not unbiased.
Would you kindly mod me +1 insightful?
An unbiased observer might wonder about an agenda of slowing the OLPC project and the spread of open source in general.
No, an unbiased observer would probably see this as an extension of student discount programs Microsoft already offers or an attempt to make a little extra money from markets that currently bring in none. Only a tinfoil-hat-wearing free software zealot would wonder about an agenda of slowing the OLPC project and the spread of open source in general.
I guess Microsoft doesn't want these schools to teach any programming classes. This bundle is great for someone just looking for a good typewriter.
Maybe I'm the only one, but I'd certainly buy a copy of windows XP Starter if it was $3, or $10. I know I'm not in the majority, but for crying out loud. I build my own systems, I install Linux, and I have to make due without Windows for my gaming.
God, if they had any sort of soul, they would give XP away once it was discontinued. Hell, give Windows 2000 away!
Yeah, it's not OSS, but they're not making any money off of it, and if Vista were any good, it would stand and sell on it's own, without resorting to making Windows XP unbuyable...
</rant>
Seriously, if Microsoft's motives were entirely philanthropic, don't you think that they would use their very large and powerful cone of influence to provide these schools with some cheap hardware? I'll bet some folks at Microsoft have a few contacts at a few major OEMs who might just help them out if pressed...
My blog
Finally we find out the *real* value of Windows and Office: about $2.75, leaving another twenty-five cents to cover the "other educational software."
Sounds about right to me.
There is no -1 Disagree mod. Slashdot.org/faq defines mod options. USE IT.
A better comparison than OLPC might be with Edubuntu since we're talking about providing software to run computer labs. And Microsoft does have something to worry about here -- Edubuntu is steadily improving alongside Ubuntu, and as a simple and easy way to set up an educational computer lab it is almost unparalleled. Not only does it have an easy to set up terminal server system, but it comes with a large array of educational applications out of the box. That makes it a very attractive option, as you get a complete lab setup and educational application suite shipped to you for free. Between this and OLPC I suspect MS is starting to worry about its position in developing countries where children are going to increasingly grow up largely using Linux in one form or another.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
Okay, OS+Software for $3. But the school has to provide free PCs to the schools using the deal. Sooooo...where does the PC come from? Or am I not supposed to not ask that question and just blindly applaud Micro$oft for their generous offer?
Any old $200 to $300 PC will work, right? Oh, wait, the OLPC is currently $150, or something like that.
Eh.
Bearded Dragon
Okay, that's $3 per PC, but you have to bring your own PC... which is, what, $500 w/o case, keyboard, mouse, or monitor? Mini-itx.com and damnsmalllinux.org have $110 EPIA 5000 boards, but $110 is $10 more than the famed $100 OLPC and you still have to get memory, storage, power, case, keyboard, mouse, and monitor.
The OLPC you get all the hardware, all the software, for a very very low price.
If you're a struggling country, what would you get? A $100-per-unit all-in-one, or $500-or-more-plus-three-bucks-per-unit system that does the same thing?
Come on, Microsoft! We've already done cheaper than that! ETRYAGAIN.
--
# Canmephians for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.net";
You know, I've never been more frustrated while at the keyboard than when I first learned my way around Linux. Wading through unintelligible man pages, cryptic commands, vague error messages, hit-and-miss support via newsgroups, and different flavors of *nix, really is a pain in the ass when you are not quite sure what you are even looking for to begin with. Not that I haven't gotten frustrated with many a Microsoft product, and the 'Net has become a much better resource than it was back then, but nothing can compare in terms of sheer piss-you-off value than going at the *nix command line as a newbie. The Gnome and KDE interfaces weren't much help, either.
That being said though, I've been away from Linux as a daily user for a while, and I downloaded Ubuntu a couple weeks back to see what it was like. I have to say, something like this would have been a much gentler in-road to an open source OS. The other stuff is still going on in the background but it has what I consider to be a practical menu arrangement and usable interface. I am pretty sure the tables have not turned in this area yet - OSX or Windows are going to be much less frustrating for the vast majority of the world population - but the gap is narrowing. The OLPC interface also looks like it was well thought-out for use by school children.
If the figures in the linked article http://www.cbronline.com/article_news.asp?guid=096 AC51E-EE83-413C-B32A-A4FFDE598E9F are close to being accurate then MS are losing $18.5 on each sale (this is without the addition of the cost of development & manufacture). Selling into markets at below cost is called "dumping" and is usually sanctioned. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumping_(pricing_poli cy)
What makes MS a special case? Nothing.
My faith is expressed through Nihilism. Do you understand?
Wow! You really drank the Microsoft kool-aid! Let's dissect your statement and find out if it stands up to the ultimate test: that of factuality.
Assertion one: If its the same price, the governments would be best suited to choose Microsoft.
First, it is not the same price. It is $3 more expensive per unit. The OLPC project is charging for the hardware, not the software. So your statement is foolish since it is clearly not the same price.
Second, it is not clear that even a stripped-down version of Windows XP would run properly on the OLPC. The XO Laptop has a 433 MHz Geode LX processor, which is an architecture known for its low IPC (as compared to other x86-compatible processors of this era.) It has only 256MB RAM and 1GB flash storage. Windows XP is not capable of operating in 256MB without swapping heavily, which would destroy the flash memory. You CAN run Windows XP on a system this slow, or even slower. But it will run like dookie.
Third, there are a number of reasons not to use Microsoft. I will not go into them now, we all know what they are whether we agree with them or not. But there are basically no compelling reasons for Windows to be used for this purpose. And in fact, there are no compelling reasons to ever run Windows except interoperability with Windows. And that is becoming less and less of an issue all the time.
Assertion two: The software works
I find this to be the most hilarious of your assertions. Windows is a gigantic pile of junk. It is utterly, laughably unreliable. It is extremely poorly documented, and there is no way but reverse-engineering to find out what many of the settings in the registry and config files are for. In fact, without using a registry monitor, you have no idea that some of the settings are even possible, because they are undocumented and the keys are not created unless they are needed.
Windows is not the fastest operating system. Windows does not support the most hardware. Windows is not most secure, or even secure - it is insecure by design and nothing short of a complete security audit (which Microsoft claims is in progress) could fix the problems. And if you did one, you'd probably break all backwards compatibility.
Oh wait! That's the story of Windows Vista! Which has already been shown to also be insecure, many times over.
Assertion three: just about every company uses it
I hope you are aware that Linux is the only operating system consistently gaining market share in the server market. It's good for a wide variety of purposes for which Windows is severely deficient. About the only thing Windows has ever been better than Linux at was serving static pages - and then we got kernel-level HTTP acceleration in Linux. Now there's nothing.
Also, if everyone else jumped off a bridge, would you do the same?
I've used Linux pretty much everywhere I've worked. I have to admit, this is the first time I didn't feel I needed a Windows box. I do actually still run Windows, because I haven't yet found an alternative to Crystal Reports, and WINE's ODBC is pretty crap still (not that I could necessarily do any better.)
But I don't feel I need a Windows box! And these schoolkids need one even less.
Assertion 4: Its best for the customers.
Right. Because what customers want is DRM, a "security" scheme that asks them for confirmation every time they pick their nose, and utter instability. Those are really features that will help them. Granted, some of that is a Vista feature - but that's the "upgrade" path from Windows XP. Your proposal is that instead of educating a gener
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I guess the name of this program lets you know how much the coin of "innovation" has been debased, that this kind of stunt dares call itself "innovation".
I do hope when MSFT and the BSA tell us how much money is lost to the scourge of piracy in the future, they price out the software in this bundle at $3 a copy.
-=Maggie Leber=-
That's true. I think I and a lot of linux users were able to get into that sort of thing more gently because we started out on school unix accounts over dial-up, or at the very least had done command line stuff via DOS previously.
OLPC is a tool for learning. It's not a word processor and spreadsheet. OLPC software will come with source codel. Is Microsoft giving away the source for Word and Excel?
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
I don't know what kind of profit is "slight", but at that price they won't be able to compete in the free market against Third World street vendors.
I live in Brazil, where you can buy a copy of XP for R$5, which is about US$2.50 at today's rates. This includes the CD with a plastic cover and a printed sheet with the activation key. Think of that, someone can copy a CD in his home PC and sell it at a lower price than the biggest software vendor in the world can do in a worldwide production and distribution scheme.
If Microsoft really wanted to distribute Windows with charitable intentions, they could do it without financial loss at less than $1 per copy.