Friday, January 4th 2008
OLPC and Intel Part Ways
More bad news for the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) project, fortunately this time nobody asks for $20 million in lawsuit. After only six months Intel has announced it is leaving the One Laptop Per Child project. According to Intel, Negroponte asked the chipmaker to stop selling its Classmate PC while it was part of the OLPC, which is currently shipping its XO laptop based on a chip from AMD. Even more surprising, Intel is saying that the OLPC actually asked the chipmaker to stop working with any company that produces low-cost laptops, such as Asus' Eee PC. "It is basically a philosophical impasse and, as a consequence, we've decided to go our separate ways," said Intel Asia-Pacific spokesman Nick Jacobs. "Despite many months of work to align Intel and OLPC, fundamental differences remain in our respective approaches to the challenge of bringing technology into education. Intel remains a strong supporter of OLPC's philanthropic goals, but we were unable to agree to some of their requests ... most notably that we cease support for non-OLPC platforms including the Classmate PC."
Sources:
CNET News, Australian IT
8 Comments on OLPC and Intel Part Ways
It's time OLPC went down. There was always an unpleasant smell around their intentions/methods that we often "forgave" due to the concept of providing cheap resources for education.
There are more (and non-vested interested) alternatives available later down the 2008 road. I recommend that we support more transparent and ethically responsible organisations than OLPC.
I'm with Intel on this one.
It also puts a different spin on this whole Nigerian keyboard issue. I'm sure there's a lot more to the story than what we read in the pro-OLPC version of the story. Can't wait to read the spin OLPC will put on the Intel story.
What a F%ing world
Go Nigerians!
Who knows what went on behind the scenes in this? I can almost guarantee you that Intel told the OLPC guys to stop working with AMD -- call me crazy, but that sounds just like something Intel would do.
you don't say "hey thanks for the free bread, but really i wanted sourdough." you're happy for what you get when its donated. lol
I think Intel has some sort of special interests in this one that they don't want to admit. Hopefully someone comes up to bat.
The whole thing is quite amazing that they got this far.
overclockers.com/tips01274/