How to increase the value of a $100 PC to $250 and make it unaffordable

[Evan Leibovitch]

Simon wrote:
> Ugh, don't give them ideas, the thought of this wonderful opportunity
> to kill MS's market share being defeated by their last ditch efforts
> is quite horrific.  I like the specs of the device though, enough to
> engage in modern computing, but low enough to keep bloatware out.
Exactly, and this offers an interesting set of events to unfold.

Given that Vista is more bloated than XP which was more bloated than
that which came before it (etc.) it will be interesting to see what they
do with the OLPC. The experience will also show the world how MS acts
when it's not working in the interests of forcing people to replace
their hardware at every software upgrade cycle. Given that the system
can't run even a "lean" desktop like XFCE (or so I was once told), how
will MS's resource-hungry OS adapt? There may be an expression of
interest, but porting could take a very long time.

Also consider: Nobody can STOP Microsoft from porting some version of
Windows to the OLPC. But if they do we have the potential for an
interesting reversal scenario; the boxes come pre-installed with Linux,
and people who want Windows have to go through the process of manual
installation, deal with drivers that are a step behind the hardware
revs, etc.

- Evan

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