[WilhelmJ]

The article says that over the next 5 years, about 7 Million laptops will be purchased. The price of windows mentioned in the article is about $110 at current rates, which means $770 million order for MS. That definitely is a big order for MS, considering the full laptop is only expected to cost ~$300.

[danmaz74]

I really can't see any good reason to spend that money to put windows in laptops for poor children. It would be much wiser to use linux and buy more laptops.

[slowpoke]

Or better (as in, sturdier, not necessarily more powerful) and more compatible hardware.

Also, I can't see any good reason at all to put Windows on any PC, but that's another story ;).

[gldalmaso]

Exactly. Digital inclusion and license purchasing is fairly counter-productive.

At least in Brazil the government has adopted a pro-FOSS policy.

[narad]

Even now, RedHat Linux is used in local government offices. Wondering what happened now, for switching to Windows 7 for freebie laptops. Huge drain on the exchequer.

[dpark]

No way this is right. $100 for Windows 7 Starter Edition? Not a chance. W7 Starter probably wouldn't cost that much retail, and there's no way OEMs are paying that much. I've read that HP/Dell/etc pay more like $25-$30 for Home Premium, which is several tiers above Starter.

Just so you know, I work for Microsoft, but not on Windows. I have no inside knowledge of Windows OEM pricing, but I'd be very surprised if Starter cost an OEM more than $5-$10.

[mistermann]

the last place i worked paid $35 per desktop for office, so if they're actually paying $110 for windows, i'd suspect there's a kickback happening at the OEM level, not unheard of in many countries.

[yuhong]

Yea, keep in mind the Starter edition is targeted at netbooks, which typically cost around $300.