Nicholas Negroponte claims $100 laptop would boost Linux market share

The USD 100 laptop is close to its launch stage and we have seen the photos of the final prototype. We have been also told that the laptop in the initial stages would cost around USD 130 and would indeed run the Linux operating system.

This is good news for the open source community as a major initiative like this would give them a chance to show the capabilities of the Linux platform. Linux would also get a push in the consumer environment as kids would get to learn the basics of computers on this operating system.

The project chairman Nicholas Negroponte has in fact claimed that the device should help the Linux OS to gain massive market share away from Microsoft Windows. He expects this device to boost the market share of Linux on the desktop to about 12 per cent.

Negroponte said in a statement during the Red Hat Summit in Nashville: “One of the side effects of the $100 laptop will be that it will boost the worldwide consumption of Linux on the desktop so incredibly that it will, over a very short period of time, be at par with where it is in the world of servers.”

He added that the fact that Intel and Microsoft have openly criticized the project means that they are indeed doing something right which in the end would affect Wintel’s market share!