Windows Cheap Enough For $2B Aussie Laptop Deal

An anonymous reader writes "Windows-based netbooks aren't too expensive to be ruled out of the Aussie government's billion dollar promise to give a laptop to every school-aged child, according to several education departments. The admission follows an earlier report that open source machines based on Ubuntu or Mandriva are the only option to deliver up to four million computers to students for under $2 billion. Microsoft itself claimed it will keep costs per unit down by hosting a lot of the educational software in the cloud rather than on the netbook devices."

Comments

Re:What a surprise

[rdnetto]

Of course, from the government's point of view its actually cheaper to go the Microsoft route. Most people fail to recognize that because Linux is a minority OS, getting support for it is more difficult. There definitely won't be enough technicians to cover every school, so their wages will skyrocket. Better to go with what everyone knows and can support, right?

P.S. I am not against using Linux per-se, I am merely looking at it from an objective and financial POV.