ZDNet UK


Skip to Main Content

ZDNet.co.uk - Winner of Best Business Website 2007
  1. Home
  2. News
  3. Blogs
  4. Reviews
  5. Prices
  6. Resources
  7. Community
  8. My ZDNet

 

ZDNet UK RSS Feeds


IT Jobs

Mobile devices Toolkit

Two laptops per child

Leader ZDNet.co.uk

Published: 22 May 2007 18:27 BST

  • Email
  • Trackback
  • Clip Link
  • Print friendly
  • Post Comment
Two laptops per child

IT is a soulless business. So when the chance comes to make a difference to something more than the bottom line, it's no surprise that enthusiasm can border on fanaticism. We've seen rather too much over-egged greenery, but the cause of educational computing for the developing world continues to excite. It's certainly excited Red Hat and AMD, who have been keen to help with the One Laptop Per Child project.

A noble cause, and one that the organisation's chairman, Nicholas Negroponte, has pursued with a zeal bordering on the religious. Although part of the plan is to squeeze margins down to nanotech thinness, it would be wrong and unhelpful to ignore the commercial implications: indeed, the OLPC organisation has been clear to say that the computer is to be purchased, not given away or subsidised. Other tech players such as Intel and Microsoft also see this as a legitimate market. The chipmaker has its own range of affordable PCs marketed under its World Ahead programme, including the Classmate, which competes head on with the OLPC machine.

And that's upset Negroponte — especially when he claims that Intel is using some of its notoriously robust marketing tactics. Intel responds that it's been working on options for the developing world for some time: we say that if the OLPC was closer to its target $100 price than the current $170-odd, then Intel's $200-plus choice would be of far less consequence. And while Red Hat's reuse of 85 percent of OLPC code for its Linux Classmate OS may seem irksome, isn't that the entire point of open source?

One of the mainstays of IT innovation has always been that competition leads to better and cheaper products. If Negroponte has faith in his device to deliver what he claims it will, then competition from Intel, and any other hardware maker, should be seen as just that. One Laptop per Child does not have to mean one design for all. Western consumers expect choice, and we should expect nothing less for the developing world.

  • Email
  • Trackback
  • Clip Link
  • Print friendly Print with Dell

Did you find this article useful?
2 out of 2 people found this useful



Company/Topic Alerts

Create a new alert from the list below:





Related Jobs

UniX Engineer

The successful candidate will have extensive knowledge around in managed service web hosting environments, Solaris 8 and 9/10, Red Hat v3 and 4, ...

Webserver E-Commerce Support Analyst Weblogic Investment Bank

Technical skills required: Minimum 5 years experience of UNIX (with at least 2 years experience of Red Hat Linux Enterprise). Leading City Investment ...

Unix Systems Admin 6 months x 2

Various Flavours of Unix Red Hat IBM My client is a market leader looking for two contractors to take on a 6 month contract. You will be involved in ...

Featured Talkback

Put simply, what is the compelling reason to pay ~$200 extra for an Eee with Windows XP? A Windows Eee won't come with any useful applications and you'll have to buy anti-virus software to boot. The truth about low cost computing is that nobody really cares whether the machine is running Windows or Linux as long as its cheap, its easy to use and it works.

By: dogStar

Read full story:
Asus to ship 60 percent of Eee PCs with Windows XP

On The Road Blog

Mobile Security Expert: Your Camera Ph...

Mobile Security Expert: Your Camera Phone Got Hacked Author: Eric Everson, Founder MyMobiSafe.com Have you ever heard someone say “I’d like to be a fly on the wall in that room.”?... More

Post a comment

Eee 1000 + iPhone 3G = the ultimate mo...

Having left the comforting bosom of ZDNet.co.uk to strike out on my own as a freelance journalist recently, I found myself contemplating a shocking truth – I was going to have to shell... More

Post a comment

Think Your Skype Call is Secure? Read...

There is growing, and credible, speculation that Skype has built in a back door to allow monitoring of SKype calls. Heise Online has a good article about it. So, what we have now... More

1 comment

Discussions

keithmv keithmv

Password Deadlock

Saturday 26 July 2008, 12:02 PM

2 comments