[svlug] Windows coming to the XO laptop? maybe a good thing?

[Edward Cherlin]

On 10/26/07, Paul Cubbage <oldestgeek at gmail.com> wrote:
> I agree with the sentiment but given todays news (asserting) that XO is
> struggling for sales, and possibly in trouble, this should help the project
> take off.

Don't believe everything you read in the papers. These analysts are
just making it up. (I was an analyst for many years. I always tried to
say when I had information, and when I was expressing a personal
opinion.)

> Th9ird world governments are often not so good for doing (honest) business.

Now, now. They didn't sign any contracts, and every salesman knows
that you don't have a deal without the signature (sometimes even with,
if you really mess up). The reason they didn't sign any contracts was
that OLPC wasn't going to offer them a pig in a poke, that is, to
offer contracts before the design was finished and in production. As
far as I can tell, they are right on schedule with the countries, even
though a few weeks behind on starting production. Ten countries more
or less said yes, they want to buy within the last year. To make the
specified price requires orders for five million units within the next
year, the last I heard. So maybe it will all fall apart (which some
expect, but I don't), or maybe they will pass through a billion
dollars in revenue to their suppliers in 2008. One or the other.

This is nothing like the hairiest startup I have been involved with.

> http://www.siliconvalley.com/latestheadlines/ci_7285872?nclick_check=1
>
> On 10/26/07, Kristian Erik Hermansen <kristian.hermansen at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 10/26/07, Sameer Verma <sverma at sfsu.edu> wrote:
> > > <Begin quote>
> > > The world's largest software company is now working to adapt a basic
> > > version of Windows XP so it is compatible with the non-profit One Laptop
> > > per Child Foundation's small green- and-white XO laptop.

The only thing about this that is news is that it is XP rather than
one of the embedded versions they are talking about. They have been at
it through most of 2007, with nothing to show publicly so far.

> > > "We're spending a non-trivial amount of money on it," Microsoft
> > > Corporate VP Will Poole said in an interview Thursday. "We're working
> > > hard. But we're still at least a few months away."
> > > <End quote>
> >
> > FUCK!!!
> > --
> > Kristian Erik Hermansen

If they succeed in getting XP to run, they will be providing free
educational applications and content alongside their cut-down,
crippled Office Suite that doesn't support all of the target
languages. It will be amusing to watch their marketing gyrations. On
the question of language support in Linux, see this Ubuntu page.

https://translations.launchpad.net/ubuntu/


> --
>  Paul Cubbage
> Industry blog: http://oldestgeek.blogspot.com/
> Ideas and musings: http://oldestgeek.pbwiki.com/

-- 
Edward Cherlin
Earth Treasury: End Poverty at a Profit
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Earth_Treasury
Sustainable MBA student
Presidio School of Management