After Negroponte commented that Windows could be coming to the Eee PC within 60 days, OLPC News published an article titled “This is The End My Friend: Negroponte Says XP on the XO in 60 days.” I think the article has a good point in that putting XP on the XO would ruin the vision of this educational laptop, but I do not see XP being an option on the XO as “the end.”

Certainly Microsoft will try very hard to make buyers of the XO choose Windows, instead of Linux, but, as demonstrated with Intel’s Classmate PCs going to Nigeria, they may not succeed. In the case of the Classmate PCs going to Nigeria, the computers were originally supposed run Linux, but, for an unknown reason, they were all about to have Windows installed on them. Luckily, however, Nigeria intervened and prevented the installation of Windows. As demonstrated in this incident, whatever Microsoft does, they may not be able to change the minds of countries that choose Linux, and, as pointed out by the article, there are plenty of reasons to choose Linux.