Microsoft's $500 laptop

Microsoft goes low-cost in India, or so the headline reads. They're going to start selling PC's in India for $500! That's really impressive. Or is it?

The PCs are set to include Microsoft's Windows Vista Basic, Works and Student 2007, as well as third-party software, including exam preparation, homework help and English-language learning programs. Microsoft also announced a test version of an online MSN IQ Education Channel.

That'd be impressive, except that I just gave (OK, loaned) several of my students laptops that UT no longer had use for. Similar machines go for $200-$300 on eBay. I installed Edubuntu on them. I didn't try to set it up in any special way to make it more usable. I provided virtually no support for them beyond telling them how to log in. These machines include OpenOffice.org, which, unlike Microsoft Works, is able to read and write several different versions of Microsoft Office documents.

A few students (40%, maybe?) decided that they didn't want to use them, but the others have been quite pleased. One of them, an assistant principal, said that he felt like a "chump" for having paid for software for so long. (I pointed out that this latest version of Ubuntu is noticeably better than even its immediate predecessor.

Laptops, though, are fragile, and difficult to manage. Terminal servers and thin clients are cheaper, more durable, and easier to maintain than laptops. Better, kids can move from one workstation to another with their own virtual laptop, gaining many of the benefits of having their own computer. Better still, kids don't have to lug them around, and they can use them in various learning environments--classrooms, labs, libraries--anywhere they go, they've got their own computer.