Asustek Computer plans to share its experience with open-source software in
its popular Eee PC low-cost laptop at the OpenTechSummit
Taiwan 2008, which runs from April 25 to 29, the company said.

The Taiwanese PC vendor is the largest corporate sponsor of the event and is
currently selling the most popular laptop that carries an open source OS, the
Eee PC.

The company officially started selling the Eee PC last October in Taiwan, offering
four different configurations from NT$7,000 (US$231) for the 2G-byte "Surf."
They all run a Linux OS from Xandros of New York.

So far, Asustek said it has sold a million of the low-cost laptops, but it
declined to break down the number of Linux versions sold versus the number of
Eee PCs sold with Microsoft Windows XP.

The Linux OS has allowed the company to keep prices down on the laptops in
two ways. First, open-source software comes at little or no cost, and second
because the streamlined OS requires a bare minimum of hardware to run. It's
been the same story as for the One
Laptop Per Child Foundation (OLPC), which also uses a Linux OS in its XO
laptop.

The foundation has been working with Microsoft to develop a streamlined version
of XP that can be used in the XO with lower hardware requirements than full
XP.

Microsoft earlier this month published
new guidelines for designing ultra low-cost laptops for Windows XP.

Asustek launched its first Eee PC with Windows XP earlier this year, and said
the OS had a big impact on sales. The company has forecast that two-thirds of
the 5 million Eee PCs it expects to sell this year will run Windows XP, while
the remainder will run a Linux OS.

Sales of the Eee PC have been strongest so far in Europe, where around 40 percent
of all of the low-cost laptops have been shipped. The company expects that figure
to rise to 50 percent later this year.

IDG News Service

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