May 15, 2008:
With Microsoft, OLPC may finally succeed
The software giant puts Windows on the "$100 laptop" (which costs
about $200) and gives the program new life.
By David Kirkpatrick, senior editor
(Fortune) -- Microsoft and the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) initiative
announced Thursday that the Windows operating system would soon be
available on the so-called XO, also known as the "$100 laptop." In
interviews, executives made it clear that this could be a catalytic
****ft in perception and market success for the innovative but up-to-
now aberrant laptop intended for the poor children of the world.
The Windows version of the XO will go on sale by September. Like the
regular, Linux-based version, it will at first actually cost closer to
$200, because the project has not yet achieved the volumes that could
drive costs down.
Making Windows available on the XO could make it far more palatable
for developing-world governments to make the huge investment necessary
to purchase large numbers of XOs for their children. "It's a very big
deal," said OLPC chairman Nicholas Negroponte in an interview.
He has for three years unsuccessfully attempted to get governments to
buy the laptop in lots of a million or more. Governments have so far
put in firm orders for a total of 600,000 machines, and several
hundred thousand are now in use. The greatest number is in Peru,
followed by Uruguay, Mexico, with fewer in Rwanda, Cambodia, Mongolia
and Haiti, among other countries.
It was a chance meeting Negroponte had with Bill Gates at last year's
Clinton Global Initiative that enabled today's news to happen.
Negroponte suggested the two organizations restart talks that had
fizzled earlier, and Gates was receptive. Negroponte has from the
project's inception hoped to have Microsoft's sup****t and Windows
working on the XO.
Following the Gates meeting and a series of conversations with
Microsoft Chief Research and Strategy Officer Craig Mundie, Microsoft
made a key concession. It will enable what's called a "dual boot,"
which means Windows will work alongside the XO's original Linux
operating system. Users will be able to choose which one to use. That
required a big change in Microsoft's approach, given its longstanding
aversion of open source.
To get Windows working on the XO took time, because it has a number of
unique hardware features, like an e-book reading mode. Microsoft will
include its super-cheap $3 version of Windows and Office called the
Student Innovation Suite with the Windows XO, which will thus be a
full-fledged Windows NT computer.
In addition, Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500) has committed to "applying
all the resources we can to insure this is successful," said James
Utzschneider, who heads marketing for Microsoft's Unlimited Potential
group, which is the company unit charged with helping get technology
into the hands of the poor worldwide.
With Microsoft applying its entire ecosystem to the task, the XO is
far more likely to get traction in countries around the world. The
company will recruit its system integrator partners, its own
consulting unit, and involve the XO in its teacher training programs,
among other efforts.
Negroponte argues that this deal will transform OLPC's competition
with Intel (INTC, Fortune 500), which he sees as the biggest
impediment to its success up to now. "The one thing we could never
dispute is that Intel had a working version of Windows [on their
competing laptops]," he said. "The kids aren't buying the laptops. It
will help a great deal that the people who really are buying them are
familiar with Windows."
Microsoft's Utzschneider says government technology ministers and
other leaders have long been attracted to the XO's innovative design,
but were also partisans of Windows. They worried, he says, that
sup****t would be a problem, and also wanted students to use software
they would also be using later in life. These are clearly reasonable
concerns.
Negroponte says when he made the rounds in Egypt trying to interest
the government in buying XOs, four ministers he met all asked "by the
second sentence" whether they ran Windows.
For all Negroponte's enthusiasm for the new partner****p with
Microsoft, he admits it "comes at a price." His top deputy Walter
Bender quit OLPC in protest, and the open source community, which has
been very helpful to the development of the XO, is adamantly opposed
to working with Microsoft. Negroponte says that if you accept that the
real goal is to get computers into the hands of kids that will help
them learn, then "this is a price worth paying."
Negroponte says that despite the project's slower than expected start,
it is still generating "enormous" interest around the world. I want to
believe him, though his predictions for hundreds of millions of
laptops in the field by next year proved to have been far from the
mark.
Next week OLPC unveils its plans for the next generation computer, to
****p by 2010. Negroponte says it is as radical as the previous
version, and will similarly spark imitators and inspire the industry.
There's no question OLPC has had a catalytic effect on the industry so
far. With its partner****p with Microsoft, it could finally start
having the effect Negroponte has always wanted it to have on kids.
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