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July 16, 2007, 02:27 PM ET
OLPC and Intel Kiss and Make Up
Nicholas Negroponte’s One Laptop Per Child project has recruited a surprising new partner, thanks to an about-face from Intel, the chip-manufacturing giant that was once Mr. Negroponte’s archnemesis.
The company has made a large financial contribution to the nonprofit group, according to The New York Times, and one of Intel’s vice presidents will take a seat on the organization’s board. One Laptop Per Child will also use Intel’s servers to build up “educational systems” in the nations that buy the project’s low-cost laptops.
But the laptops themselves won’t have Intel chips, at least not for the time being. Mr. Negroponte chose nearly two years ago to outfit his machines with processors from Advanced Micro Devices, one of Intel’s competitors, and the project has not announced any intention to change its plans.
One Laptop Per Child’s decision to forsake Intel may well have contributed to the sour relationship between the project and the company. For the past couple of years, Mr. Negroponte and several Intel representatives have sniped at each other in the press. Last year Intel even created its own alternative to the OLPC machine: The Classmate PC boasted more features than Mr. Negroponte’s machine. But it was also considerably more expensive, and that was a real hurdle for a device marketed chiefly to developing nations. —Brock Read
Categories: Teaching, Company-Watch
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