[iDC] One Laptop Per Child - Intel Pulls Out.

[Patrick Lichty]

As stated at:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17894663

Morning Edition, January 7, 2008 · An ambitious project to create a cheap 
laptop for the developing world is running into problems. Intel, one of the 
major sponsors of the One Laptop Per Child project, is pulling out. The 
project and the company could not agree on how a rival product from Intel 
would be marketed.

In 2005, MIT professor Nicholas Negroponte announced the effort to design a 
$100 laptop. The project was aimed at schools in the developing world, but 
it has hit a few snags. The latest was Intel's decision to withdraw.

The split arose because Intel and Negroponte's group could not agree on how 
Intel would market a rival product that sells for around $250.

Officials with the One Laptop Per Child project claim their laptops provide 
vast educational benefits.

But many foreign governments, the computer's target clientele, aren't 
buying. The millions of orders needed to reduce the price to $100 never 
materialized. That said, there are pilot projects in some countries, says 
Wayan Vota, editor of OLPCNews.com.

"Right now we have a lot of reports of children really excited about their 
laptops, children enjoying their laptops and playing with them," Vota said.

"But we don't have any reports that this play and enjoyment is transferring 
into real learned knowledge and real growth and development of the child," 
Vota said. "And that's really the key metric Negroponte needs to show to 
have OLPC grow and take off with the developing world."

Even if the $100 laptop project doesn't succeed, it has already made an 
impact. Today, there are many other companies from Silicon Valley to East 
Asia making laptops that cost less than $400.