Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Microsoft's XO Laptop Strategy

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the jigga-whaaa dept.

gbulmash writes "Microsoft is spending a 'non-trivial' amount of money to get Windows XP working on the OLPC project's XO laptop. But why? Despite the conjecture that the Linux-based XO could convince millions of people in the developing world that they don't need Windows and build a huge base of developers for Linux, there still remains the question of how Microsoft would convince owners of XO laptops to buy and install Windows XP over the functional Linux-based OS already on it. It's doubtful that Microsoft could encourage or coerce Negroponte to put XP on the machine, so whose arms will they twist?"

2 of 242 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Two Possible Reasons by kebes · · Score: 5, Interesting

    They will release Windows XP trimmed down but it will only run if it recognizes the hardware as XO That would be interesting, since there are well-established solutions for emulating the XO in a virtual image (mostly for development purposes). These could probably be adapted to run this modified Windows XP. I imagine that a trimmed-down XP running in a virtual machine would be very useful. It would run quickly and could thus easily fill the gap of running a few Windows apps on an otherwise FLOSS machine.

    No doubt Microsoft would try to create license terms to prohibit such usage, but without cooperation from the hardware designers in the OLPC project, I'm not sure they will have any technical ability to lock-out their Windows XP version from being run in virtual machines.
  2. Re:Two Possible Reasons by Abcd1234 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The first is the driving force behind all of Microsoft's actions (and, in fact, almost everyone's): money.

    Absolutely. But I think both of your ideas are off the mark (though you start to get it a bit later). The goal, here, probably isn't to make money selling Windows to XO users. In fact, I'll bet dollars to donuts their plan is to give away their port for free. No, the goal is to get people familiarized with Windows products. Remember, the developing world today will be the markets of the future for MS. Having an entire generation of children exposed to Windows could be a very good thing for Microsoft when those economies begin to mature.