You might have heard of One Laptop Per Child – a low-cost, flash-driven laptop also known as… You might have heard of One Laptop Per Child – a low-cost, flash-driven laptop also known as the XO, which gained recognition in late 2006. But the latest news for the XO could spark big changes: It might just get a hand from Windows XP.

The machine, only $100, is designed to assist children in underdeveloped countries in access to technology, the Internet and a broader range of knowledge.

Designed for a child, the computer comes equipped with software driven by wireless adapters for standard communication protocols, an easy-to-understand keyboard layout and the versatility to change itself into an eBook or tablet PC with only a small movement of the screen.

The machine is also designed to be highly reliable and long-lived, for it not only replaces the easily broken spinning components of traditional hard drives with no-moving-parts-required flash drives, but also replaces the traditional two- or three-hour laptop battery with an eight-hour battery that recharges with solar cells or a hand crank.

One of its only criticisms, which is also, ironically, also one of its great strengths, is the fact that it runs a Linux-based operating system.

Linux is inherently unsupported because of the fact that it is open-source. The benefit, however, is that it is completely free – the perfect price for governments strapped for technology cash.

Some countries, however, see fit to struggle over whether the Linux-based operating system of the XO laptop will be compatible and useful in the future. After all, a large majority of the standard laptops and business workstations in the world run Microsoft Windows XP.

In response to this hesitation, Microsoft has announced a new initiative to allow small flash laptop devices, commonly less expensive than their larger, hard-drive driven counterparts, the luxury of running Microsoft Windows XP. The XO laptop appears first on their list of machines to support.

This revelation creates a series of problems, however. The XO laptop is inherently designed to be inexpensive, and Microsoft Windows XP destroys any chance of this – in addition to buying the hardware, an interested government would need to purchase licenses to Microsoft Windows XP.

The XO laptop is designed from the ground-up to be efficient and space saving. Microsoft Windows XP takes 1.56 gigabytes of disk space just to load and perform basic operations. The XO laptop is designed to be easily maintained. Microsoft Windows is commonly criticized for being unstable and buggy.

Nonetheless, the possibility of Microsoft Windows XP for the XO laptop is promising, though perhaps not for the underdeveloped proprietors of the XO laptop. Microsoft is claiming this new initiative as a component of a larger effort to port Microsoft Windows to commercial flash-based laptops.

Conventional laptops, designed for adults in the United States and Europe for business use, might have hundreds of dollars shaved off of their prices by downsizing and replacing cumbersome, large hard drives with inexpensive, smaller flash drives.

Many manufacturers like Lenovo and Acer are developing inexpensive, smaller laptops for use in quick computations, note-taking and basic development. Laptops without CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drives and with a flash hard drive can commonly be only a few pounds in weight, increasing usability and portability.

These small laptops, however, commonly require slowed-down processors or a reduction in on-board memory in order to remain inexpensive and lightweight, heavily affecting the performance of Microsoft Windows XP – a very resource-intensive operating system.

If Microsoft makes a concerted effort to “trim the fat” of Microsoft Windows XP, running a fully compatible Windows port efficiently on a scaled-down flash laptop may be a real alternative to buying larger, more expensive machines.

For traditional laptops, a cut-down version of Microsoft Windows could lead to a similar “trimming of fat” for manufacturers – many modern businesses waste processor power by purchasing laptops that are more powerful than their needs require.

Business machines can therefore slow down their processors, become less expensive, require less power to operate, and still efficiently execute any required programs.

Although Microsoft meddling in the world of the One Laptop per Child may seem, to an open-source proponent, a horrible turn of events, the fruits of Microsoft’s labor may ultimately benefit the computing world as a whole.

With a more efficient Windows XP port, the trend of smaller, flash-based computing devices will be given renewed strength, and outrageously inexpensive, fully featured computers may begin to crop up on the market more often.