The Portuguese government is confident that Intel’s low-cost laptop
initiative will improve education — enough to place an order for
500,000 of the chipmaker’s Classmate PC notebooks.
With the move, Intel has nearly matched One Laptop Per Child’s (OLPC)
overall total of 622,000 laptops sold to date. Nonprofit OLPC’s goal
since 2005 has been to produce a $100 notebook to provide poorer
countries with education; its current offering, the XO, costs about
$188.
Though it would appear Intel has "won" against OLPC, OLPC President
Chuck Kane stressed that competition is irrelevant to his
organization’s mission.
"I want to make it clear here we’re not competing; we are
complementing," Kane said in a phone interview. "When these actions
take place then our mission is further advanced…. Our mission is to
get laptops in the hands of children; it doesn’t necessarily have to be
our laptop."
He added that Intel’s move does not spell out trouble for OLPC, because "The world is big enough for us combined — and more."
However, computer industry analyst Roger Kay of Endpoint Technologies
Associates thought differently. He said that the downfall of OLPC is
that it fails to recognize it must operate with a sharp business model in
order to succeed in its idealistic goals.
"[OLPC] is not really clear on what it takes to produce massive
quantities of these things, deliver them and then support them in the
field," Kay said in a phone interview.
He explained that Intel has the advantage in this regard, because in
selling 500,000 low-cost notebooks to Portugal, the company is creating
a market for such devices. Thus, more Original Equipment Manufacturers
will want to work with and provide for Intel, a company that
understands how to operate a business, as opposed to OLPC, Kay said.
"Intel has very long range view of how they develop a market, and
that’s what they’re doing," Kay said. "It’s competitive; this is how
competitive companies operate, they have a goal…. They adjust to
realities of the situation; they bring in partners; they come up with
marketing strategy and campaigns."
However, OLPC’s president said his organization is satisfied that a new
market has emerged as a result of its efforts. He said he’d like to
keep seeing Intel and other manufacturers continue producing low-cost
laptops, because it only furthers the organization’s cause of providing
computers to as many children as possible.
"What I’d like to see happen is an ecosystem develop here — similar to
what’s happened with iPods," Kane said. "When Apple came out with that
product, there were a lot of companies that surrounded the appliances
of that product….We will be absolutely delighted to see people push
innovation, because
that’s only going to translate to other parts of the world having that
opportunity that they would’ve never had before."
Portugal to sell 500,000 of Intel’s Classmate PCs [AP News]
(Photo credit: graysky/Flickr)
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