Asustek Computer (Asus) predicts the Eee PC it has started selling with Microsoft Windows XP Home edition on board will outsell the original Linux-based version by a ratio of 6 to 4 in the market by the end of this year, a heady prediction considering the Windows machine costs nearly twice as much as the cheapest Linux one.

The company has forecast Eee PC shipments at around 5 million units this year. Based on the 6 to 4 ratio the company predicts, Asus could ship around 3 million Windows Eee PCs and 2 million [M] Linux ones.

"A lot of people have been waiting for the Windows version," said Jonney Shih, chairman of Asus, in Taipei this week.

The company is selling two different versions of the Windows Eee PC laptop. The cheapest one, the Eee PC Surf XP, costs US$408, has a 7-inch LCD screen, 4G-bytes of NAND flash memory for storage, and 512M-bytes of DDR2 DRAM (double data rate, second generation, dynamic RAM). The more expensive version, the Eee PC 4G XP, costs US$473 and includes an additional 4G-byte SD (secure digital) card for storage as well as slightly better battery able to last up to 3.5 hours, versus 2.8 hours for the cheaper model, and a built on 3-megapixel digital camera.

The laptops both run on Intel Pentium M 650MHz to 900MHz chips and weigh less than a kilogram.

The lowest cost Eee PC available runs on a Linux OS from Xandros, carries just 2G-bytes of NAND flash for storage and sells for around US$261.

Asus formally launched the Eee PC with XP on board at the Cebit trade show earlier this month, in Germany. The devices can be found at stores or online in most countries, but prices vary slightly depending on local costs, taxes and duties, said Jose Liao, head of Taiwan sales for Asus.

The version of XP running on the Eee PC is not the one being designed in conjunction with the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) Foundation, said Davis Tsai, general manager of Microsoft Taiwan. Microsoft has been working with OLPC to develop a scaled down version of XP for the XO laptop developed by the group. Windows XP requires more storage capacity than was originally built onto the XO laptop.