Archive notice: This article was originally published on September 6, 2008. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
Online retailer Amazon has announced that it will support the “One Laptop per Child” project (OLPC) and offer customers the $100 laptop, known as the “XO,” as part of a special campaign. The agreement between OLPC and partner Amazon provides for this year’s “Get 1, Give 1” donation campaign to be handled through the online retailer’s portal. Customers can purchase one OLPC for themselves if they simultaneously buy a second device that will benefit a schoolchild in one of the target markets of the IT development-aid project.
With the “Get 1, Give 1” campaign, the project’s initiators, led by MIT professor Nicholas Negroponte, already attempted last year to raise awareness of the XO and improve the project’s finances by stimulating sales. This year, the organization approached Amazon because it did not itself have the resources needed to run the donation program on a larger scale. The online retailer will include the device in its product range in November and December. Initially, the XO will be available only in the United States. When asked by pressetext.de, Amazon Germany could not say whether corresponding plans existed for the German-speaking market.
“There are efforts to make the program available outside the United States and Canada as well. However, there is currently no firm confirmation,” Christoph Derndorfer of OLPC Austria told pressetext.de. “Personally, I hope that ‘Give 1, Get 1’ will soon also be available within the EU. Amazon would certainly be an ideal partner for this.” Derndorfer generally sees the project as being on a good path: “The current situation at OLPC is very positive, particularly in the area of the ‘Sugar’ software, where impressive progress has been made in recent months.”
For the first time, the XO will also be available as a dual-boot version. The device will have both the Linux version “Sugar,” developed specifically for OLPC, and Windows installed as operating systems. Until now, the laptop had been available with only one of the two systems. Because the OLPC was originally designed as a Linux-only device for cost reasons, the decision to also use Windows drew criticism from the Linux community. However, several countries considered potential XO customers had named Windows support as a requirement. Microsoft, in turn, had previously opposed the dual-boot version.
