Microsoft Wants One Laptop Per Child System To Run Windows XP

InformationWeek ^ | December 6, 2007 02:06 PM | By Paul McDougall

[SubGeniusX]

The software maker wants OLPC to redesign its XO low-cost PC for children in developing nations.

Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) has asked the designers of a low-cost Linux laptop intended for children in developing nations to redesign the system so it can accommodate its Windows XP operating system. In a move sure to provoke controversy, Microsoft wants the designers of the XO laptop, available through a non-profit initiative called One Laptop Per Child, to add a port through which the storage capacity required by Windows XP can be added to the system.

The XO currently runs on a Red Hat Linux operating system. Making the laptop compatible with XP would give students in poor countries access to "tens of thousands of existing educational applications written for Windows," said James Utzschneider, a Microsoft general manager, in a blog post Wednesday.

Utzschneider says a shrunken version of Windows XP could potentially run on 2 Gbytes of flash memory. The XO, however, can only hold 1 Gbyte. As a result, Microsoft wants the XO's designers to add a slot through which more memory can be added via a secure digital (SD) card, Utzschneider said.

"We asked the OLPC to add a slot for an internal SD card that will provide the 2 Gbytes of extra memory," Utzschneider wrote. It was not immediately clear if the OLPC has responded to Microsoft's request.

The OLPC project was launched in 2005 by Nicholas Negroponte of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The aim is to build industry support for the production of low cost laptops for poor children on the wrong side of the so-called "digital divide."

The group's first offering, the XO, runs on the Linux operating system and an Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE: AMD) processor and is priced at less than $200.

Last year, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates chided the XO for its lack of functionality, insisting that the fact it requires a hand crank for power would make it difficult for children to use.

Microsoft's call for changes to the system that would add features but increase its price could provoke a backlash from OLPC purists who maintain that the XO must be produced at the lowest cost possible.

Microsoft's renewed interest in participating in OLPC might be viewed by skeptics as an admission that a rival offering for developing markets called Classmate -- which uses an Intel processor on Microsoft software -- has failed to catch on.

Virtually all major U.S. tech vendors are looking to emerging markets to drive the bulk of their sales growth in the 21st century, and are loathe to see rivals establish an early footprint.

Microsoft on Wednesday said it's planning "limited field trials" in January of an XO system running Windows XP.

[RightFighter]

Then it’s got a bunch of bloatware running in the background. There is no reason a laptop with 4GB of memory would run slowly otherwise. That’s not Microsft’s fault - it’s the fault of the laptop manufacturer cutting side deals and trying to find ways to make revenue beyond the initial PC sale.

[ReignOfError]

>>>Back in the early 1990s, I had a TRS-80 model 100.

The irony of that statement is that I believe that was the last model that Gates himself actually programmed for (or it might have been the 200). That machine was already old by the '90s, but you were able to do work with it (Sinclair had an enhanced version with the same idea in mind... a great notetaker).

Oh, it was an old machine, not at all fancy. But it was lightweight and reliable, with a full-size keyboard that had a nice feel. The Mod 100 (and its successors) never made much of a splash in the broad market, but they were hugely popular with journalists. When your business is text, when that's all that's really crucial, your priorities shift.

I was working as a stringer for a local weekly paper at the time. I had a Mac at home, and preferred it for games and going online and other fancy stuff. When I needed to write in the field, the Mod 100 was perfect. I think the XO could fill that role today.

Back in the days of Z-80 and MS-BASIC, Microsoft wrote tight code.

They had to. They were working with 3K of RAM and 200K of storage on a loaded system. Microsoft didn't start its code bloat until they got so huge that they no longer needed to write software to run on the hardware, but other folks had to engineer the hardware to run their software.

[AFreeBird]

> Yes, the language barrier could be formidable...

Since Linux is a world wide developed and supported OS, its language support is quite good. For example:

(af) Afrikaans

(am) Amharic	(ar) Arabic	(az) Azerbaijani
(be) Belarussian	(bg) Bulgarian	(bn) Bengali	(br) Breton
(bs) Bosnian	(ca) Catalan	(cs) Czech	(cy) Cymraeg (Welsh)
(da) Danish	(de) German	(el) Greek	(eo) Esperanto
(es) Spanish	(et) Estonian	(eu) Euskara (Basque)	(fa) Farsi (Iranian)
(fi) Suomi (Finnish)	(fr) French	(fur) Furlan	(ga) Gaeilge (Irish Gaelic)
(gl) Galician	(he) Hebrew	(hi) Hindi	(hr) Croatian
(hu) Hungarian	(hy) Armenian	(id) Indonesian	(is) Icelandic
(it) Italian	(ja) Japanese	(ka) Georgian	(kn) Kannada
(ko) Korean	(ku) Kurdish	(ky) Kyrgyz	(lo) Lao
(lt) Lithuanian	(ltg) Latgalian	(lv) Latvian	(mk) Macedonian
(mn) Mongolian	(ms) Malay	(mt) Maltese	(nl) Dutch
(nb) Norwegian Bokmål	(nn) Norwegian Nynorsk	(pa_IN) Punjabi (in gurmukhi script)	(pl) Polish
(pt) Portuguese (Portugal) (pt_BR) Brazilian Portuguese	(ro) Romanian	(ru) Russian	(sc) Sardinian
(sk) Slovakian	(sl) Slovenian	(sq) Albanian (Shqip)	(sr) Serbian
(sv) Swedish	(ta) Tamil	(tg) Tajiki	(th) Thai
(tk) Turkmen	(tl) Filipino (Tagalog)	(tr) Turkish	(uk) Ukrainian
(ur) Urdu	(uz) Uzbekian	(vi) Vietnamese	(wa) Walloon
(zh_CN) Chinese (simplified)	(zh_TW) Chinese (traditional)		And I suspect if they're getting these laptops into an area that is not currently supported, it soon will be.

[AFreeBird]

Last year, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates chided the XO for its lack of functionality, insisting that the fact it requires a hand crank for power would make it difficult for children to use.

LOL right Bill. And I suppose the lack of electricity isn't a hindrance at all.

What a Maroon

[ReignOfError]

Actually there is, kinda. The article said they did a similar project and it tanked. So now they want the people doing the project that worked better than theirs to take advice from them on how to do it! Doh!

Microsoft loves to play the compatibility card. It's all they've got. And it's increasingly irrelevant.

Apple had a similar project, also aimed at kids and schools, to create a minimal, capable, portable machine. It was called the eMate, and it was based on the Newton OS. Clamshell design, designed to take hard knocks, power efficient, no frills like a color display. It was ahead of its time. The tech has gotten better and cheaper in almost every area, so I think the XO is much closer to fulfilling the ideal than the previous attempts. And with USB, it's much more flexible.

[Waryone]

I think you’re right about that. The Laptop came with a note saying although 4 gig of ram was placed on the machine, it only had 3 gig available. If Vista needs 2 gig, that doesn’t leave much to work with.

[ReignOfError]

first of all let me remind you that the governments we’re talking about are poor and not exactly role models for economic freedom (which is why they are poor). The laptops come at a cost of freedom which is what the kids really need to get ahead.

1) I suspect that "we" aren't on the same page as regards what "we" are talking about. I'm looking at countries like India, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Kenya, South Africa, and so on. Countries that, while imperfect, are mostly capitalistic and mostly democratic.

B) "The laptops come at a cost of freedom" -- I find that argument absurd. The laptops provide more access to information, and that almost always expands freedom. The Soviet Bloc provided radios as a means to spread its propaganda. A lot of those radios ended up tuned to Radio Free Europe.

Oppressive governments might have one plan for the use of those laptops, but the clever kids who will receive them will have other ideas. We're giving the little people more tools to gain access to information. That is never a net negative.

Computers in the classroom is a gimmick. if you want kids to learn math the last thing you want to give them is a calculator.

If you're teaching arithmetic, you don't want kids to have a calculator, because you're building basic skills. If you're teaching calculus, you want kids to have a calculator, so they can learn to most efficiently find the answer with the best tools available. If that kid wants to be an architect or an engineer, and if the only tools he has are pencil and paper, he can hardly compete with someone who has a calculator and CAD.

They are just going to use the laptops to play games.

Bovine Scat. That argument has been used time and time again, from the time when American workers first stated getting computers to the first time they got fast computers with color displays, to the first time they started getting Internet access at every desk. But with every advance in tech, American workers became more productive, and continue to lead the world in productivity.

If you give people access to information and tools, you introduce the possibility for distractions. If you give someone a pencil and a newspaper, he might spend all day doing the crossword and reading the comics. But he also might read the newspaper, know what's going on in the world, and take notes. Experience suggests that the latter is far more common.

And since they didn’t do anything to earn the laptop, they will have a sense of entitlement and you’re going to end up with a lot of spoiled kids and a lot of broken laptops.

Yeah, kids getting spoiled is definitely the most urgent concern in the third world. I mean, how will the ever learn to fend for themselves if they're given food! Every day!

[tarheelswamprat]

>> Microsoft wants the One Laptop Per Child to run XP.

Does this mean they finally realized what a piece of cr*p the VISTA operating system is?

More like their lawyers have warned them they might be liable for child-abuse prosecution with Vista... /grin

[ReignOfError]

Last year, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates chided the XO for its lack of functionality, insisting that the fact it requires a hand crank for power would make it difficult for children to use.

LOL right Bill. And I suppose the lack of electricity isn't a hindrance at all.

And it would be much easier for them to walk miles to the nearest electrical outlet, stand around for hours waiting for it to charge and then carry it back home.

Bill doesn't get it. He's thinking in his box, whic has been incredibly profitable for him so far. To use the cliché, it's not just about thinking outside your box -- it's about thinking inside theirs. And for all the money he's made and all the press he's gotten, Bill Gates will never have a tenth of Nicholas Negroponte's imagination.

Another cliché is that the world is divided between dreamers and doers. I call BS. Without action, a dream is just vapor. Without a dream, action is just busy work. They folks who really make a mark are both dreamers and doers (or teams of dreamers and doers). Wozniak and Jobs. Hewlett and Packard. Orville and Wilbur. Daimler and Benz. Edison and Bell. Groves and Oppenheimer. Even, once upon a time, Gates and Allen.

[ReignOfError]

I think they mean the machine has a flash “hard drive”. Probably cheaper/more energy efficient/more durable than a normal mechanical hard drive.

Yes to all of the above. The flash memory is main storage, not swap memory (a function served by RAM, on nearly all of our computers). That 1 GB of flash is the functional equivalent of the hard drive, not of RAM.

[ReignOfError]

Then it’s got a bunch of bloatware running in the background.

I think the phrase "Vista laptop" pretty much covered that.

[goldstategop]

Amazing. Microsoft is telling us Windows XP is a security nightmare but its fine for Third World children to get a less than up to date operating system on their low cost laptops! Go figure.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[chilepepper]

A good rule of thumb is that you'll never be able run any version of an operating system not supplied by a laptop manufacturer.

with the notable exception of LINUX. very, very few manufacturers "supply" Linux as an option on a laptop, yet Linux drivers are sophisticated enough to work around the inconsistencies of new hardware and "just work". it is amazing to behold (we've had to scrub Vista from at least a dozen different laptops - Ubuntu and/or Fedora and/or Debian installed without problems on *EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM*.

on several of them, at the users request we tried XP and it failed to install because Windows drivers for some device had not been developed (in order to FORCE people to put up with Vista of course...)

[Still Thinking]

I always interpret any Microsoft pronouncement about security like in the Trek Classic episode where they wore their insignia upside down and everything they said was understood to be the opposite of the truth.

I believe Microsoft defines security as “secure for Microsoft, secure from the owner, our customer”.

[Arthalion]

1. Turn off User Account Control. It’s easy to turn off and once it’s off, the operating system no longer hits you with repeated requests for permission to do things.

Actually, a better suggestion IMO is to simply ensure that your user account has administrator privileges. You may not want to do that in a corporate environment, but for a home machine UAC actually prevents most of the security risks associated with running at the Administrator level. Typically, when I see people complaining about UAC, it's because they followed Microsoft's recommendation to perform their daily activities with an account at a lower privilege level. Doing so requires the user to enter the Administrator password every time UAC activates, which is a huge PITA. By converting the account to an Administrator privilege level, the OS protections offered by UAC are kept in place and the UAC interruptions are limited to a simple confirmation pop-up. On my computer, it adds maybe one second to most transactions. That, in my opinion, is a fair trade off for vastly improved protections against worms and viruses.

[VOA]

“Microsoft Wants One Laptop Per Child System To Run Windows XP”

So, Bill Gates want to make Vista the “adult” system?

Whatever...I’m sticking with Windows XP Pro as long as possible!
After that, all bets are off, Mr. Gates!

[excalibur1701]

>>Whatever...I’m sticking with Windows XP Pro as long as >>possible!

So is our company. We bought two new PC’s with Vista on them, and decided enough is enough. The XP-Pro system is very stable and doesn’t give administrators nightmares like Vista did.

[ari-freedom]

-
1) I suspect that “we” aren’t on the same page as regards what “we” are talking about. I’m looking at countries like India, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Kenya, South Africa, and so on. Countries that, while imperfect, are mostly capitalistic and mostly democratic.
-

—
So they should be more capitalistic.
—

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B) “The laptops come at a cost of freedom” — I find that argument absurd. The laptops provide more access to information, and that almost always expands freedom. The Soviet Bloc provided radios as a means to spread its propaganda. A lot of those radios ended up tuned to Radio Free Europe.
-

—
what’s absurd? these laptops will cost money and that means taxes must be raised. Better to just cut taxes and if people in the private sector think these laptops add value, they will be purchased. I doubt they would which is why it is easier to get gullible governments to buy them instead. This way they can say they are doing something while thousands are starving.
—

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Oppressive governments might have one plan for the use of those laptops, but the clever kids who will receive them will have other ideas. We’re giving the little people more tools to gain access to information. That is never a net negative.
-

—
Adults: yes. kids? no, they will be distracted from learning the basic essential stuff that is taught in school.
—

-
If you’re teaching arithmetic, you don’t want kids to have a calculator, because you’re building basic skills. If you’re teaching calculus, you want kids to have a calculator, so they can learn to most efficiently find the answer with the best tools available. If that kid wants to be an architect or an engineer, and if the only tools he has are pencil and paper, he can hardly compete with someone who has a calculator and CAD.
-

—
we are talking about kids, not engineers. These kids aren’t learning calculus so all this high tech is just going to be wasted. I have yet to see any educational benefit from technology to the kiddies despite what “Baby Einstein” says.
—

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Yeah, kids getting spoiled is definitely the most urgent concern in the third world. I mean, how will the ever learn to fend for themselves if they’re given food! Every day!
-

—
Why be a farmer when foreign aid will give free food to your potential customers? As a result 3rd world countries are starving all the time. That’s what welfare does to people.
—

[twinzmommy]

LOL I wasn’t talking about the OS . . . but rather the kids software itself :)

[Paleo Conservative]

Microsoft wants more flash memory so they can put Windows on it. Make no mistake, that's just the camel asking if he can get his nose in the tent. Once Windows is part of the picture, well, it really needs a faster processor to run well. A faster processor means more heat, so you'll need a fan. That means you'll need a bigger battery, which adds to both weight and cost. Oh, and of course, to take advantage of the full Windows Experience or to play the cool games, you'll need a faster graphics controller and a better sound card. More weight, more power, more cost. As you wrote, they're "people unclear on the concept."

Which is why I rhetorically asked if WinFLP could be used.