The One Laptop Per Child initiative started out with a price projection of $100. Now, as told a couple of days ago, the price is hovering at $188. Talk about a cost overrun! No wonder it is so hard to do good work for the needy.

Now it seems that Microsoft wants to have its operating system included on the laptop. We hear anecdotes about how Bill Gates has said that the laptop needs a ‘real’ operating system, so Microsoft has to put its nose into the effort.

This seems radically stupid for a couple of reasons. (Now I’m not one to criticize the unintelligent, the infirm, or children aged less than 5, but when someone considers himself ‘high bandwidth,’ and then says this kind of thing, I’m more than ready to start poking fun whenever and wherever.)

The first reason this is silly is that Microsoft has never been a ‘giver’ to the community - any community. When Apple gave away IIes and the software to run them, it was with the idea that it would fuel purchases by those due to good will - but the educational stuff was at no cost. When Microsoft does educational material, there is always cost, well above the materials used, and usually with some ulterior motive, that has yet to be disclosed.

The second reason is that Microsoft would have to fabricate a completely new operating system, as even Windows 95 was too big to run on the OLPC. DOS and Linux are the operating systems that have been successfully ROM’ed, and DOS doesn’t multitask, or have a TCP-IP stack. (The OLPC has no hard drive, nor is one planned - there is the possibility of a USB hard drive, but its widespread use is doubtful)

The third reason is that any benefit to Microsoft from the ‘good will’  would be negated by the rantings of Steve Ballmer, pounding on his chest, throwing chairs about, and pronouncing Microsoft a ‘good neighbor’ while at the same point in time being involved in so much litigation that it could employ all the lawyers in any medium sized city for its own needs.

The fourth, and somewhat minor reason, is that if Microsoft were to fabricate an operating system for this project, it would undoubtedly be off-putting to all the children, distracted by all the updates and patches needed to make it run as it should. Most children would be in secondary school before the bugs get worked out - remember the business cycle of Microsoft, and the fact that this is not nearly as important as selling the full priced operating systems, and chasing after ghosts who pirate the software.

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Tags: olpc, microsoft, cost overruns, operating systems, rom, tcp-ip stack, apple, apple iie