Microsoft wants to make its Windows operating system available on the One Laptop per Child notebook computers, OLPC chairman Nicholas Negroponte said at the NetEvents conference in Hong Kong on Saturday. "I have known Bill Gates his entire adult life. We talk, we meet one-on-one, we discuss this project," said Negroponte, vnunet.com can reveal. "We put in an SD slot in the machine just for Bill. We didn't need it but the OLPC machines are at Microsoft right now, getting Windows put on them."
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Member since:2006-02-06
New market? Microsoft losing ground in most areas?
This is a snowball effect happening - as more and more kids learn to use computers and more and more of those kids learn to use other operating systems, as it's almost a requirement nowadays, the more and more Microsoft will continue to lose ground that it had firmly held during its monopolistic days when nothing else existed in a more public arena.
Not to mention that Billy himself stated this was a fruitless endeavor in not so-many words. Now that he's being proven otherwise, he wants in. He doesn't like that very much.
Member since:2005-07-26
It really isn't a "mind change". Despite large technology leaders like Intel and Microsoft making disparaging remarks, Nicholas Negroponte has continued to work with Microsoft on this unit. In this report:
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/6022.html
he indicates that he is continuing to work with Microsoft, and has even delivered prototype boards for them to work with and make drivers for a Win CE version.
So I guess this is no surprise to me (though it did take me a few minutes to dig up that older reference from 6 months ago). 
Member since:
2006-11-24
The article isn't too informative. They only state that they are making windows run on it. No word on why they do it, if it will be the default and such things.
And I thought Gates offered Windows before, but was rejected due to openness and hardware requirements? Any details on the mindchange?