OLPC Set to Dump X86 for Arm Chips in XO-2

From the article: --- "Like many, we are urging Microsoft to make Windows -- not Windows Mobile -- available on the Arm. This is a complex question for them," Negroponte said.

OLPC is in talks with Microsoft to develop a version of a full Windows OS for XO-2, Negroponte said. The XO-2 is still 18 months away from release, so "a lot can change with regard to Microsoft and Arm," Negroponte said. ---

In other words, they recognize that switching to ARM will be good for the hardware, but they really don't want to unless they can keep using it to push proprietary Microsoft software to developing countries.

I do have to wonder: If Windows had been continuously available for non-PC hardware, would Intel have gotten 64-bit and W^X sooner?

Let's hope they go ARM, lots of other ARM-based netbooks and notebooks come out, and Linux remains the only choice for 12-24 months. By then Windows won't be irrelevant but it no longer will be seen as the only way or even the best way to go,

MS is caught between a rock and a hard place. If they don't port Windows to ARM then they're giving away a large chunk of the netbook market to Linux. If they do port it then it'll add two years to their release cycle and Linux will eat their x86 platform thanks to XPs outdatedness and Vista's suckiness (and still take a large chunk or ARM thanks to Windows 7's tardiness).

They will probably try to solve it by throwing an enormous amount of manpower and money at the ARM port but I predict that will fail massively. Read "The Mythical Man-Month" to understand why.

Or just read it because it's good reading.

I just like knowing that Linux is slapping Microsoft around. Even two years ago Microsoft would have ignored this. Can't do that now.

Quoting:DigiTimes claims to have spoken to sources at netbook manufacturers who said that Pegatron Technology plans to produce a netbook based on Freescale's ARM-based i.MX515 CPU, while Wistron reportedly has a netbook based on Qualcomm's ARM-based Snapdragon platform in the works.

As well as this, the site reports that both MSI and Asus have confirmed that they’re “evaluating the possibility of launching Qualcomm CPU-based netbooks.” The site also says that netbooks using Nvidia’s ARM-based Tegra platform will also appear at a later date. Freecom launched its i.MX515 CPU in January, and specifically targeted it at the netbook market with a reference netbook design for OEMs based on Ubuntu Linux.

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2009/03/16/arm-netbooks-to-be-l...

Freescale have certainly released a Notebook reference design based on the i.MX515 and according to the people I speak to there are hopeful of taking big chunks of the market. Freescale are quite pro-Linux and release a lot of these dev boards for Power PC, Coldfire and ARM devices with Linux BSPs. I think they are also fairly high up in the list of kernel contributors.

http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/18/smartq-5-mid-scores-itsel... ;-)

Quoting:However, even if Microsoft was to code an ARM-compatible version of Windows for netbooks, you would still then have the barrier of getting third-party x86 software working on the new OS.

Stupidity knows no bounds. http://www.debian.org/distrib/packages indicates that most of what I need already runs on ARM. Am I missing something? It's just laughable that anyone would suggest there is any reason at all that Linux+FOSS apps is not good enough. Who cares about Windows + proprietary Windows apps?