Microsoft hopes to capture these 5 billion people for its future market potential.

The decision to put Windows on the laptops came about because officials in some countries feared a non-Windows laptop would ill prepare students for the real world, in which Microsoft software dominates. OLPC ultimately decided to ignore the controversy and follow its mission of delivering laptops to kids in developing nations, no matter which OS countries ask for.

The group now offers XO laptops with either Linux or Windows XP.

Last month, OLPC announced that several towns in Colombia were in the process of buying or deploying its XO laptops, most of which use a Red Hat Fedora Linux OS core customized by OLPC and a graphical user interface aimed at kids called Sugar.

An initial 20,000 laptops will be handed out at schools in the capital, Bogota, thanks to several Colombian foundations and private donors. Another 90,000 laptops will be deployed in Cartagena.