In a press release, Craig Mundie, chief research and strategy officer at Microsoft, said:

"Transforming education is a fundamental goal of Microsoft Unlimited Potential, our ambitious effort to bring sustained social and economic opportunity to people who currently don’t enjoy the benefits of technology. By supporting a wide variety of affordable computing solutions for education that includes OLPC’s XO laptop, we aim to make technology more relevant, accessible and affordable for students everywhere."

Meanwhile, Nicholas Negroponte, founder and chairman of OLPC said:

"From the beginning, the goal of OLPC has been to use technology to transform education by bringing connectivity and constructionist learning to the poorest children throughout the world. Today’s announcement, coupled with future plans for a dual boot version of the XO laptop, enhances our ability to deliver on this vision. In addition, OLPC will work with third parties to port its user interface, called ‘Sugar,’ to Windows."

As Negroponte himself has admitted, for some of the deals that the OLPC Foundation wishes to make, Windows is a requirement. For example,Uruguay made it a requirement in its recent solicitation.

While Microsoft said in a blog post that the version of XP that will run on the XO laptop is the same that runs on Intel Class Mate, ASUS Eee PC, and Ultra Low-Cost PCs (ULCPCs). However, Microsoft was forced to write multiple custom drivers and a BIOS so Windows could boot from an SD card.

Microsoft and the OLPC Foundation didn't announce which countries will get the Windows-based laptop first, but the above press release has a quote from a Colombian official, so I would tend to place them at the top of the list.

Source: By Tech Ex