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Intel signs up to USD100 laptop
Monday, July 16 2007
by Billy MacInnes


After years of squabbling, Intel and Nicholas Negroponte 
agree to put their differences behind them joining forces to
bring PCs to kids in the third world.

Negroponte's One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project is bringing
Intel on board as a partner and a possible future supplier,
the two entities announced. Intel will become the 11th member
of the OLPC's board, joining other companies such as eBay,
Google, Nortel and Intel's bitter rival AMD.



The OLPC's mission is to put laptop computers in the hands of
children around the world, in the hope that access to
technology will help improve the education of millions
growing up in developing nations. The XO laptop at the heart
of the project costs about USD175 to produce but Negroponte,
founder of the not-for-profit OLPC, thinks they will sell for
about USD100 once production starts in earnest later this
year.



Just a few weeks ago, the notion of Intel and Negroponte
working together would have seemed absurd. Negroponte's
almost evangelical approach to the OLPC project and Intel's
determination to grab a piece of the emerging PC market has
produced rancour on both sides over the past few years.



Intel chairman Craig Barrett has been the public face of the
company's work on its Classmate PCs for emerging nations, and
he has been very dismissive of the OLPC project in the past,
calling it "the USD100 gadget". And in a May interview
with 60 Minutes, Negroponte accused Intel of dumping
Classmate PCs way below cost in order to win deals with local
governments and sabotage Negroponte's dreams of bringing PCs
to the world's poor children.



The dispute appeared petty at times, beneath both the world's
largest chipmaker and the co-founder of the Media Laboratory
at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. After all,
there's unfortunately no shortage of poor children in the
world who have yet to realise the power of the personal
computer, and the developed world is big enough to support a
huge PC industry with dozens of rich players.

After some discussion, the two groups realised they had more
in common than they had in dispute, said Will Swope, a
corporate vice president and general manager of corporate
affairs at Intel. "We're trying to accomplish the same
thing," he said.



Intel's immediate effect on the OLPC project will be to
improve the open source software that ships with the XO
laptop, said Walter Bender, president of software and content
for the OLPC. "Intel has got a very strong team in Linux
and open source," he said.



Intel is currently wooing developing nations with Classmate
PCs that are available with either Linux or Windows, part of
the chipmaker's continual dance between Microsoft - its
closest partner - and the desire of some customers for open
source software. But the OLPC is an avowed open source
supporter, giving Intel a broader outlet for the work
produced by its collection of open source software engineers.
The company said it has no plans to stop selling its
Classmate PCs, despite its backing for the OLPC machine.



At some point, Intel also wants its chips to be inside the XO
laptop, Swope said. "We are going to try to win the XO
business but it's the OLPC's decision. We haven't won the
business as a result of this agreement."

At the moment, AMD is the silicon supplier for the XO laptop.
This appeared to be at least part of the reason behind
Intel's disdain for the OLPC project as well as Negroponte's
suspicions that Intel wanted to lock him out of certain
countries.



In the developed world, the PC market is rapidly maturing,
eroding the growth rates that Wall Street loves so much. As a
result, both AMD and Intel see a huge source of future
earnings in the millions of people who have yet to buy a PC.
The companies would rather attribute their efforts to a
humanitarian desire to help the world but shareholders like
profits, too.



AMD said it is undeterred by the news its rival is joining
forces with the OLPC, despite the prospect of a few awkward
board meetings at some point in the future. Rebecca Gonzales,
AMD's senior manager of business development for high-growth
markets, said: "Right now, we see no change in the way AMD
will participate with OLPC. We welcome [Intel] to the
table."



Reprinted with permission from href="http://www.silicon.com/">Silicon.com.