ozmanjusri's Journal: Nobody buying Windows OLPC.

Many Slashdotters will remember that almost exactly a year ago, Nicholas Negroponte's One Laptop Per Child announced a deal with Microsoft to test thousands of XO laptops running Windows XP. It was a tough time for OLPC, with multiple resignations of senior people and facing a rocky relationship with Intel. Arguably, the project has never really recovered, despite unveiling the promising-looking XO-2.

So after all the effort and cost, how well in the Windows XO selling?

It isn't. According to One Laptop Per Child News, countries that test both versions of the XO are choosing Sugar over Windows XP for their deployments.

Initially country representatives inquire if Windows XP runs on the XO laptop. That doesn't really come as a surprise - for many people Windows is the definition of a computer. However, upon further investigation every country decided to stick to Sugar.

Of course, even though the open source option is finally being revealed as the desktop of choice, it can't be called a win for OLPC. They have wasted a lot of effort making the XO BIOS XP-capable, and lost many very capable contributors as a result their departure from "the culture of learning that OLPC adheres to and promotes, a culture of open inquiry, diverse cooperative work".