It’s not been a good week for the OLPC project. First a $20 million claim for the ongoing patent litigation / sparring from Lancor, and now Intel leaving from the project, effectively claiming that they were pushed, after being asked to stop supporting alternative low-cost projects, including the EEE. According to news.com:
“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.“
The OLPC currently has an AMD processor, but, future versions of the device were apparently to be based on an Intel chipset instead. Whilst the OLPC has a worthwhile objective, I am not sure that many businesses would be willing to support a charitable initiative to the exclusion of other, revenue-generating, projects?
Posted by Neil 