Quanta’s US$175 Laptops to Adapt Windows

The founder of the $100 laptop project, which plans to give inexpensive computers to schoolchildren in developing countries, revealed that the machine now costs $175 and will be able to run Windows in addition to its homegrown, open-source interface.

Nicholas Negroponte, the former director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab who now heads the nonprofit One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project, updated analysts and journalists on where the effort stands, saying: "We are perhaps at the most critical stage of OLPC's life."

That is partly because at least seven countries -- Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil, Pakistan, Thailand, Nigeria and Libya -- have expressed interest in being in the initial wave to buy the little green-and-white "XO" computers, but it remains unclear which countries will be first to come up with the cash.

The project needs orders for 3 million machines in order to begin its manufacturing and distribution effort.
The XO machines will be produced by Taiwan's Quanta Computer Inc.

Source: Taipei Times