January 7, 2008
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Today, Intel has announced it has cancelled its nonprofit One Laptop Per Child project (OLPC). Intel's
initiative was to produce low-cost laptops for developing nations. In July 2007, Intel and OLPC founder
Nick Negroponte announced they would work together to produce the laptops.
OLPC was a popular concept but it cost more and took longer than expected. Originally, Intel hoped to manufacture
the laptops for just $100 but it is now double that.
The laptop is designed to work on less traditional power sources and is energy efficient. It uses a handcrank,
pedal or pull-string to produce electricity and can run up to 21 hours without being plugged in.
Intel has their own PC for school children, called the Classmate PC. They weren’t willing to meet Neogroponte’s
request not to sell it. It probably didn’t help things further when Negroponte went on 60 Minutes in May and
basically asserted that Intel was undermining the OLPC by selling the Classmate PC below cost.
Intel had their own accusations, namely that OLPC wanted Intel not to sell chips to anyone with a similar product.
To offset costs OLPC temporarily sold to the public, asking people to buy two laptops for $399 and donate
one of them. They recently began selling laptops in African, Latin American and other countries.
OLPC also just lost their CTO, Mary Lou Jepsen, who quit earlier this week to launch a for-profit company to
commercialize the technology she invented.
The project doesn’t seem to be going well and the OLPC project stopped selling laptop to consumers at the end
of last month.
Negroponte accused Intel of violating its written agreement with the group “on numerous occasions” and said
the chip manufacturer “contributed nothing of value” during its six months on the board of the nonprofit group.
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Source: Market Watch
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