Intel pulls out of "One Laptop Per Child" Project

Intel's decision to pull out of the One Laptop Per Child project, founded by Nicholas Negroponte, is a blow to the project's ambitions.

According to today's BBC report, the project, which aimed to bring computing to children in developing nations via a custom-built, low-cost laptop, seems to be stalling. The original plan was for costs to be kept low by selling in volume, with governments placing large orders of one million. That has not materialised. Costs per unit crept up accordingly, with the final versions trialled in Uruguay and Nigeria reportedly costing closer to USD 200 (GBP 95). What does this mean?

In a strictly pragmatic sense, it's hard to fault Intel for acting the way it did. Intel has its own competing product, the Classmate, which rivals the OLPC's AMD-powered XO. Clearly, OLPC were not happy about this, seeing it as a direct threat to the success of their project. The OLPC apparently asked Intel to stop backing rival low-cost laptops, but the company refused to do so.

Whether or not one chooses to cast Intel as the "baddies" in this scenario, for refusing to "play nice", the real question is: how will this wrangling affect the intended beneficiaries of the OLPC? That is, how does it impact on the children who need access to information and to the internet in order to function effectively as 21st century citizens and consumers?

From the point of view of the intended purchasers, the governments, think it's quite understandable that they were reluctant to commit to such large orders of a single product from a single provider (albeit a consortium) when prices for standard, mass-market laptops are coming down so rapidly. And competition will, hopefully, deliver better value to the consumer in the longer term. But what about the immediate consumers, the individuals? My personal feeling is that diversity benefits the consumer -- but sometimes that benefit is realised only in the longer term.

The value of the OLPC was that it was directed towards addressing the immediate access gap - the project was, in a sense, taking a deliberately "short-termist" view (in asking its partners to focus on a single product, and to cooperate on its production and distribution) in order to address an immediate need. Can the children of developing countries afford to take a long term view? The longer-term perspective is a luxury that is, in truth, rarely available to the disadvantaged.