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Comment by WilhelmJ | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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 ;).

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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