How long until "Microsoft Linux"?

Is it inevitable?:

Microsoft Linux: Why one free software advocate wants it

Is it likely, or even desirable?
     

Linux to Microsoft: THANKS! And so long...

Is Microsoft making some huge mistakes? It's not hard to see why some people think so. From PCWorld.com:

Dear Microsoft: Thanks for the Help, Linux

You gotta love it. Microsoft has decided that it will go ahead and kill off easy access to XP on June 30th. On behalf of desktop Linux users everywhere, and our first cousins, the Mac fans, thanks. You've given us the best shot we'll ever have of taking the desktop.

But it gets even better! Microsoft has also announced that it will be releasing Windows 7 on January 2010. They'll blow that ship date. Microsoft has never set a shipping date it could meet. But, who in their right mind would now buy Vista?

I mean, come on, I don't think anyone with their wits about them would buy Vista anyway. Vista is to operating systems what the 1976 Tampa Bay Buccaneers are to the National Football League, the worse of all time. Vista was trash; Vista is trash; and now Microsoft, as expected, is throwing Vista on the trash dump.

It also helps that Microsoft has decided to go ahead and dump XP, the operating system its customers want, no matter how loudly they say they want to keep buying XP. Now that's showing your customers how much you really care about what they want.

Desktop Linux is poised to make the most of this opportunity to convince Windows users that there is a better way. [...]

The article has lots of embeded links, and goes on to explain in detail why this is going to be so favorable to Linux. I won't cry for Microsoft, but it sure seems like they are shooting themselves in the foot... at best.

     

A Microsoft & OLPC Lovefest? A $75 Laptop?

In recent news, there has been a split between the OLPC Projct and Intel. I'm not surprised, it was just PR for Intel.

Microsoft, on the other hand, seems to be getting on just fine with the OLPC project. OK, "Lovefest" might be too strong a word, but it does sound like they are getting along:

CES: OLPC, Microsoft build dual-boot Windows, Linux OS

One Laptop Per Child Project (OLPC) and Microsoft are developing a dual-boot system to put both Linux and Windows on laptops.

"We are working with them [Microsoft developers] very closely to make a dual-boot system so that, like on an Apple, you can boot either one up. The version that's up and running of Windows on the XO is very fast, it's very, very successful. We're working very hard to do both," said Nicholas Negroponte, chairman of OLPC...

Whodathunkit? I think MS realizes what a unique piece of hardware OLPC has created; they want a piece of the action. Negroponte is no doubt happy to have a monied partner helping them.

I have read reports elsewhere that claim Microsoft denies the Dual Boot story. But it would seem the partnership is doing well. Negroponte seems to think so.

In another bit of news, Mary Lou Jepsen is leaving the OLPC Project to start her own hardware company. She created the amazing indoor/outdoor computer screen the OLPC XO laptop uses.

Jepsen claims that if she had been allowed to take more risks, she could have got the price of the XO down as low as $75.00! Will she do that now?

The $75 computer?

When the OLPC (One Laptop per Child) was first proposed, much was made of how impossible it was that there could ever be a $100 computer. Well, the naysayers were right. It turned out to be a $200 computer. Now, former OLPC Chief Technology Officer Mary Lou Jepsen says she can make a $75 laptop. [...]

I think I read elsewhere that Jepsen will still be a consultant to the OLPC project, and has agreed to sell them parts at cost. She wants her new company to be more than a design house, she wants to actually make parts and devices. Perhaps a $75.00 computer? I expect we are going to see some great things from her and her new company, "Pixel Qi".

I see much cheaper computers available soon... for everyone!