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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Microsoft has had the MAR (Microsoft Authorised Refurbisher) program where they donate Operating Systems for refurbished computers for charities Low Income Families they had Windows 98 and Windows 2000 pro, Microsoft Works 7 now come January they will be dropping Windows 98 and Works and adding Windows XP Pro and Office XP to the lineup. My business I own donates around 100 computers a year to low income families all thanks to Microsoft making it possible and also to Open Source software such as Open Office and Tux Paint. I originally started the program using Ubuntu Linux but I recieved too many support calls from recipients of the computers because the donated computer was the first on they had in their life and their freinds and family were not familier with anything but Windows (I still offer them the choice though) Ubuntu was kind enough to send all the media I wanted.
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2006-01-11
... unless Microsoft gives it away.
Microsoft charges large OEMs, like Dell or HP, roughly $50 for each Windows XP license. Because of the costs of the distribution chain, and unavoidable costs like the fact that you've got to pay salaries and rent, you can't stay in business selling a product if your materials costs are $50 and you get less than $100. So the rest of the machine would have to be free. Even $150 is too low for a retail price.
Now, Microsoft might decide to basically give away a stripped-down Windows to the Third World, to head off the threat of several million people running a Linux OS. They can afford to accept less revenue. But if they keep having to do that to compete at the low end, then their revenue is headed for a downward spiral after a one-time upward bump for Vista.