Uruguay places the first OLPC XO order; Negroponte says Windows is "key"

The OLPC XO found itself in a couple different headlines today, first with the Laboratorio Tecnológico de Uruguay stepping up to become the first official government purchaser of the "$100" laptop, committing to buy 100,000 of the green machines, with the potential to buy a further 200,000 by 2009. The deal's been coming for a while but was just made official today, marking the first major order for NickNeg's baby -- and a big win over Intel's Classmate PC, which was also in the running. Speaking of NickNeg, the man with the plan also made the news today by saying that OLPC has been working with Microsoft from the start, saying "It would be hard for OLPC to say it was 'open' and then be closed to Microsoft. Open means open." Apparently, OLPC has been earmarking some of the first engineering models from each developer build for Microsoft, and Redmond has pushed for and gotten changes in the device, particularly the inclusion of an SD slot. There's still no word on if we might see an XO preloaded with XP, but from the looks of things, it's going to happen sooner or later.

[Thanks, Wayan]

Read -- Uruguay places the first official OLPC XO order
Read -- NickNeg says OLPC is working with Microsoft

[Bryant @ Oct 29th 2007 11:02PM]

XP on an OLPC would actually be quite nice. Most of the people in these countries who have any computer exposure are already exposed to pirated copies of Windows XP, so they already know how to use it.

That's not to say that many people *have* exposure to computers in these nations. I'm just pointing out a fact. The Windows UI is the most recognizable.

[gingerfred @ Oct 29th 2007 11:07PM]

Despite the semicolon, the headline is misleading, and implies that the Uruguan order is somehow influenced by availability of Windows on OLPC.

Besides that, while I am a strong supporter and user of OSS, and sort of feel annoyed by what Negroponte said, I can't really fault his decision regarding this. If he really wants the openness to the platform to mean opening up to also closed OS/software, then it is his choice. It's sort of like people who choose BSD openness over GPL openness.

I think he probably made the choice since it would mean even greater acceptance of the OLPC hardware, although of course, displeasing the software team to some extent.

[BatteryAcid @ Oct 29th 2007 11:08PM]

Linux FTW!

I tried thecurrent operating system and it is aquard. I think they should get a Costom OS similar too XUbuntu an EDUbuntu.

[mdm-adph @ Oct 30th 2007 3:06PM]

It was probably awkward because you're used to classic operating systems -- if you read their site, you'll find out that the system was designed for people who had never even used a computer before, so the traditional UI your used to (menus, buttons, etc.) may not be the most ideal.

[BatteryAcid @ Oct 29th 2007 11:12PM]

Wow, sorry about my spelling. I kind of wrote it down and didn't clean it up.

[bob @ Oct 29th 2007 11:13PM]

this thing would probally cream a macbook on benchmarks



apple a company which puts crappie computers in cool boxes and sells them for 100 times to much
a guy named bob :)

[John @ Oct 29th 2007 11:50PM]

I thought Microsoft stopped making Bob years ago.

[bob @ Oct 30th 2007 8:20PM]

im bob version 2.0 os 10 will catch up to me in 50 years maybe


We all know that macs are overpriced gar bage and that a computer is a computer the only thing that is really different is the operating system or on a mac the little apple they glue on witch they charge u a couple thousand for

apple a company which puts crappie computers in cool boxes and sells them for 100 times to much
a guy named bob :)

[Taylor @ Oct 30th 2007 4:55AM]

The OLPC is not about specs - it's about bringing computers (which can hold several textbooks worth of educational material) into countries where they're uncommon or expensive to the average person. The idea is to have these relatively cheap things that the governments of said countries can subsidize.

[johnzilla @ Oct 30th 2007 8:08AM]

Apple hardware is overpriced blah blah blah insert stale-argument-from-1997-here.

I just did a feature to feature comparison between the Apple Macbook (black) and the Dell Inspiron (13" screen). Out of 25 specifications (everything from video card to warranty), Apple was ahead on 5, Dell was ahead on 5 (neither vendor by much, just a little different) and they were dead-on equal on the other 15. The Apple was $100 less.

So much for "overpriced Apple hardware".

[bob @ Oct 30th 2007 8:20PM]

@ johnzilla


okkkkkkkkkkkk im not sure bout the dell thing but i will tell you taht you can pruchase for the $1500 version of macbook a alienware with a 7600go video card macbook has intgrated, 15.4inch widescreen ,acbooks like what 13 inch?? it has 2gigs ram macbook has 1, lets see what else oh 2ghzz proccesor whatya say to thatt just cuz u picked the most overpriced 13 inch computer besides a mac you could find is not my problem (good try) so there might be a few (1-2) pcs that are overpriced more then a mac but other n that its not even really possible

apple a company which puts crappie computers in cool boxes and sells them for 100 times to much
a guy named bob :)

[rawhead @ Oct 29th 2007 11:36PM]

"this thing would probally cream a macbook on benchmarks"

Of course it will, Bob. Of course it will.

[N30 G30 @ Oct 30th 2007 12:32AM]

OLPC (One laptop per child)?

Why is there 5 kids sharing that one?

[kyle allen @ Oct 30th 2007 1:04AM]

olpc? more like ocodpc! (one copy of doom per child)

[Iggi @ Oct 30th 2007 1:03AM]

Why did they push for an SD slot? How might that be any advantage for Microsoft?

[Russell @ Oct 30th 2007 3:48AM]

built in semi-permanant storage of high capacity...

MS could then sell, cheaply hopefully, Encarta on SD, full Office on SD, Visual Studio on SD as "feature packs" to plug right in.

Makes sense to have SD for this sort of thing and still use USB key for your data.

One OLPC may have the "encarta" SD addin for 10 people who each would have their own USB.

That's what I would think anyways.

[Bernhard @ Oct 30th 2007 4:08AM]

Maybe they will put in Windows Vista Starter edition, removing the limit of just 3 apps and they have an OS that can actually be used.

[SushiPillow @ Oct 30th 2007 11:08AM]

Would be interesting if they loaded the OLPCs with Windows ME. Then we could finally find out which is worse: starving to death or the BSOD.

[Mark @ Oct 30th 2007 2:13PM]

This makes a lot of sense. Why ship a computer with it's own custom dumbed down interface and OS, to these kids, when the majority of the world runs on Windows and Mac, and Linux (with KDE or Gnome)?

These kids will become so used to these dumbed down interfaces that when they graduate and possibly start university, there or abroad, they'll have a big adjustment to make when they have to rediscover computers and an operating system with a more complicating and maybe even frustrating interface, whether it is Vista, Linux (KDE or GNOME), or OSX; they are all much more complicating than the currently shipped OS.

It's probably not that much of an issue though, a computer is better than no computer. I think Windows would improve the experience though. Makes it much more authentic. It will teach the kids to save their work often, and how to ALT+CTRL+DEL to close a frozen program without crashing the whole OS, etc...You know, things we do in the real world.

If Microsoft does put Windows on the OLPC, I would hope they would just give it away, or at least heavily subsidize it. It is definitly PR, worth its weight in gold.

[Cerebus @ Oct 30th 2007 3:33PM]

This isn't about XP--it's about MinWin. XP is too heavy to run on this platform, but MinWin is allegedly designed for such hardware.

[takato @ Oct 30th 2007 6:46PM]

bullcrap, I've run XP on a PII at 300mhz with 128megs of ram. slow yes, but usable. the XO is 433mhz with 256 megs of ram, which is a lot for windows FLP. that's an OS with the XP core, but it's missing alot of unneeded plugins. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Fundamentals_for_Legacy_PCs

[TerraCotta @ Oct 30th 2007 11:58AM]

OLPC will run Windows Vista fine. However, to get past the login screen, you'll need to upgrade to quad-CPU, 8 GB RAM, high end graphics card and probably change the monitor too.