The Business of Technology

What a love/hate relationship! Nicholas Negroponte, One Laptop Per Child's chairman, and Microsoft Corp. announced on Thursday that Microsoft would be offering Windows XP at a $3 license fee to be installed on the XO laptop. Targeted at $100, the XO laptop currently costs just under $200 and needs to meet critical mass to drop the price down to that level. It is VERY telling though that Microsoft has finally agreed to offer it's operating system to the OLPC initiative. First off, Microsoft is getting concerned about losing its' market share in the Operating System category. The OLPC XO laptop currently runs Linux. Traditionally, Microsoft has been anti-open source. Also, Apple's Mac OS X Leopard is increasingly gaining market share in the consumer sector and is expected to take another huge leap when the 3G iPhone is expected to be released worldwide in June. The IPhone runs a full version of Apple's operating system. Microsoft is obviously slowly feeling pressure against … [Read more...]