From Monday in the US, the One Laptop per Child project’s XO laptop will be available through the ‘Give One, Get One’ programme once more, this time facilitated by Amazon.com.

For $400 [263], the not-for-profit low-cost-laptop project will send one XO to the purchaser and one to a school-age child in a developing country.

One Laptop per Child (OLPC) said in September that it wanted to revive last year’s successful programme, but didn’t have the infrastructure to support the programme alone.

Microsoft has started making Windows available for the XO laptop in developing markets like Colombia and Peru. However, purchasers participating in the Give One, Get One programme will not have the option of Windows.

UK understands that the Give One, Get One scheme will operate from 17 November in the UK, but has received no official confirmation from OLPC.

The low-cost PC has found its market not in the developing world but, unexpectedly, in more mature markets, Intel has said.

The devices, often small portables capable of accessing the internet and with basic features, for example Intel’s Classmate PC and OLPC’s XO laptop, have in past years been targeted toward emerging markets in rural countries.

However, Intel thinks mature markets are the device’s next great opportunity.

Navin Shenoy, vice president and general manager at Intel Asia-Pacific, told Asia that the chipmaker is targeting its new line of low-power processors designed for low-cost PCs at both emerging and mature markets.

(Full article ‘Intel sees mature markets embracing low-cost PCs’)

While the news that Microsoft is developing a version of Windows for the so-called “$100 laptop” has caused some consternation, the head of the One Laptop per Child project has said the scheme could not promote openness if it blocked Windows.

Microsoft corporate vice president Will Poole told Reuters last week that the software giant is working on a stripped-down version of Windows XP to run on the ruggedised laptops destined for schoolchildren in developing countries. According to Poole, the OS could be ready in a “few months”.

The educational XO laptop has been built using free and open-source software В— part of the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) project’s drive to allow XO’s young users to modify the laptop’s software as they see fit.

The OLPC’s philosophy of openness is behind its decision to allow Microsoft software on the machines, according to chairman Nicholas Negroponte.

“It would be hard for OLPC to say it was ‘open’ and then be closed to Microsoft. Op

(Full article ‘Negroponte: Windows key to OLPC philosophy’)