I have read a lot this morning in reaction to the OLPC episode on 60 minutes, and I think there needs to be some clarification.
Yes, Negroponte is pissed off at Intel, it doesn’t take a lot to get there. The problem is, he is NOT afraid of Intel because of competition, he is pissed off at Intel because they selling machines at a loss to gain market share.
The OLPC project is reliant upon large numbers of machines (the $175 price tag is expected to drop to the $100 range within the next few years depending on demand). OLPC is building a program, not just laptops, to support a different approach to education. Intel is trying to sell more chips, and is a little peeved that OLPC uses AMD.
Intel’s approach is not to build a cost effective, self supporting program. It is to drive the competition out of the market, and in order to do this, they are selling their machines _at a loss_. Intel cannot sustain this approach, and hopes to drive out OLPC (a sustainable approach) to increase it’s market share. Ultimately, Intel will have to raise it’s prices (even higher still, to compensate for early manufacturing losses), whereas OLPC will decrease it’s prices.
This is why Negroponte is mad. Their approach harms the longevity of ANY laptop education program, not just OLPC. In the end, Intel is looking to make as much money as possible off their machines whereas Negroponte is trying to build a model that will continually decrease in price the more they are manufactured. Intel will not put more laptops in children’s hands, they will slowly strangle more money from third world governments with a broken and predatory manufacturing model.
Can we stop analyzing this now?
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