Hi Ron,

Intel it seems to me just wants to get their brand name out to 100,000,000 kids. Then when those kids grow up they think of intel and how wonderfull they are.
Companies are driven by greed, greed now or planned future greed.

One good thing, It will help get lap tops out to the kids. Cheaply and faster.

Kyle Keeton

It will interfere, but not in the way most would think. This is just another bid by Intel to out maneuver AMD. I read an article about this yesterday, but strangely Intel doesn’t specify which processor will be used. If it wants to it can dump whatever processor it wants into this machine. Just another strike at the AMD bottom line, and ‘one mark on the wall’ of one-upsmanship.

I don’t think it matters much who Intel says their “intended” market is. In the end they’ll sell to anyone who wants to buy, just like they do with any other product they make. The Intel laptop will become another option for governments who are interested in the OLPC and will be promoted by Intel or some go-between and defended with the argument that customers have the right to choose what they want to buy. Government sales are probably the best kind for any computer manufacturer, so we can expect a lot of under the table dealings to go on.

I don’t blame Intel for wanting to compete with OLPC, just as I don’t blame Microsoft for acting like any other greedy, commercial, for-profit, entity. It just goes to show how the proprietary computing system instinctively tries to undermine every other competing group when there’s money to be made.

I think the OLPC project needs to be under some sort of charitable umbrella and sponsored (subsidized) by richer countries so that the commercial schemes of Intel, or any other company, won’t be attractive to governments in the developing world. What Intel is offering may be a laptop of equal quality, but it won’t run the software or support the community network that is the real heart of the OLPC.

It wouldn’t be hard for many countries to divert some funds from their already existing foreign-aid budgets to the OLPC. The OLPC is really about extending access to the educational resources of the rich world via a locally sustainable network of laptops. That’s the sort of foreign-aid project that most countries would be excited to support.

While OLPC is a great idea, it moved and shaked INTEL! for that we have to thank NegroPonte! Truth is that in our society the market is the one who decides where the products will go, no matter how loyable OLPC idea was. I had access to both computers… there is no comparation.

In addition, no body is mentioning that OLPC was requesting Governments to place orders for 1,000,000 units! (Now that approach has being lowered to 250,000 units) Trust me, 1 million units at 100US$ per unit is a nice 100 million US$, way, way too much for any small size Education Ministry in a Developing world.!

In addition, a huge issue that I don’t see addressed by the previous comments relate to CONTENT, Local Content, Educational Content… OLPC doesn’t have it yet, Intel on the other hand has a clear path associated with their Intel-Teach, a program already working that provides teachers -overseas- with some training to understand a bit more of the ICT for development in the development world and in the classroom. To give Laptops to kids or teachers without basic training… is a dream that can easily ecome a nightmare.

Security of the devices is another issue… If no security-schema is implemented, I am affraid that kids will be the new victims of thiefs and local crime.

Finally, OLPC and INTEL in some degree assume that “access to the Internet” will be automatically provided by ???? True is that both models do not address that issue, an important one if we want to have the next generation of kids in the development world having access, learning and sharing information.

OLPCs price is close to 175… Intels is close to 275… new full size laptops are under 400…

Hi G.Castillo,
Thanks for you comments and for sharing your point of view. It is appreciated.
Regards, Ron