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Corporate clash over school PC may force other options
By siliconindia
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Tuesday, 08 January 2008, 02:19 IST
Bangalore: Intel's announced decision to leave the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) initiative has triggered a clash in the corporate world. OLPC founder Prof Nicholas Negroponte accuses Intel of trying to undermine the selling of the non-profit organization's school PC platform, called the XO, in some South American markets. Intel on its part said it was not willing to stop selling its own educational PC - the Classmate - merely because it had decided to support OLPC, reported Business Line.
The Consumer Electronics Show that opens in Las Vegas on Monday (January 7) was widely expected to see Intel showcase an OLPC / XO built around one of its own chips. Now that is unlikely to happen.
This corporate clash has diverted attention from what should have remained a core objective of all concerned: creating an affordable computing platform, so that the millions of children around the world would have access to an affordable tool for Internet-fuelled learning and collaboration. Clearly both the organizations have sunk millions into developing their respective versions of a school PC.
Both the organizations cannot afford the negative impact of the latest disharmony, because potential customers, governments or educational boards in the developing world are now likely to be frightened off into inaction.
India has been an interesting testing ground for both Classmate and XO. HCL has already started making the Classmate with know-how from Intel at its Puducherry plant. It has innovated - by deciding to offer a Linux option and tying up with local developers to create appropriate study material.
The OLPC organisation has tried out the XO in a pilot scheme in Khairat-Dhangarwada village in Maharashtra's Raigadh district. It was said to be supported by Reliance Communication. The Indian government has not as yet endorsed either of these initiatives.
There is more than one danger from all this delay or dithering. On one hand, open market forces will see aggressively priced laptops hit the market soon that will challenge the school machines at least on price. Asus has already launched the eePC in key global markets, a compact model with a 7-inch screen and solid state memory but otherwise a full featured PC. The Indian enterprise-fuelled Aci (Allied Computers International) has also announced a 7-inch laptop for 2008. These could well give specialist school PCs a good run for their money.
