Chip-maker Intel "should be ashamed of itself" for efforts to undermine the USD 100 laptop initiative, according to its founder Nicholas Negroponte. He accused Intel of selling its own cut-price laptop - the Classmate - below cost to drive him out of markets. Professor Negroponte, who aims to distribute millions of laptops to kids in developing countries, said Intel had hurt his mission "enormously".
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Member since:2005-08-28
Well, from what I can tell it looks like the Classmate PC is a stripped-down conventional laptop rather than a totally new design like the OLPC (for better or worse). There's no interesting display, a tiny touchpad, a much more power-hungry processor (which, still, will go over fine in second-world countries), and they don't mention any of the wireless mesh. I believe the projected cost of the Classmate PC is still $250, which is a somewhat significant increase over the $175 XO.
Other than that, they are pretty similar. I don't know about Negroponte yelling at them for this; it seems like the OLPC still has its own considerable appeal for more rural markets, provided they get the human-power charger working.
As for software, both of them seem to be relying on local educators and the community in that country to provide targeted and appropriate content for the children.
This is my main worry for both of them: The OLPC in particular is still finalizing and working the kinks out of its hardware, and they've hit the magical trip-point where they're going to start producing these things... Where is the content? If these are educational devices you need time to write the educational software and activities.
I haven't seen much said about any advance copies being sent out to governments interested in purchasing these laptops so their educational professionals can create software for them. No, they're already planning on shipping en masse.
Edited 2007-05-21 15:39
Member since:2005-11-10
Negroponte is fussing because Intel has come in with their slick marketing and gone to governments and said:
"Hey even though ours costs $250, we will underwrite a chunk of the costs so our machine costs only $150 We will even get MS in here to market to you and then we will have Windows installed and ready for you. Oh you want vista later, got to pay for that, but you don't need that anyway."
And then people go to OLPC and say can you match it? And OLPC has to say no cause it has no money!
Negroponte did this out of his own idea to help people. Intel is doing this just like MS wants in on it to keep market share. That is all!
MS and Intel wants other kids to grow up like Americans knowing only Intel and MS and only buying that.
Nothing wrong with that if OLPC was a for profit business. But it's not.
Edited 2007-05-21 16:46
Member since:2005-07-06
Unfortunately , money is always made in these companies
Thing is, if someone with limited resources brings up money and resources to create something which will help people, and babysit this idea all the way from idea to reality, that is something to be proud of and support. When a company recognizes that this idea has profit potentials and recreates the idea with pretty much no effort relatively, then undercuts the pricing to steal the "market" then that's not something to be proud of. If they would've taken the road to support the original project, then that would've been a wholly different story.
Member since:
2005-07-08
I'm sure Intel is after the money,but in the end what matters is the fact that they are selling a cheap laptop.Which,mind you,runs Windows and Linux. I don't know which is better (never touched one of these) but I suspect they are pretty much the same. morally, Negroponte & Co should have first option. Unfortunately , money is always made in these companies. And people look first at this : money.