16 Breakthrough Notebooks: A Look Back

“The Asus Eee PC is widely recognized as the computer that
sparked the netbook craze in late 2007. But in 2005–long before
the Asus Eee PC came out–Nicholas Negroponte was touting his
concept of a $100 laptop at the World Economic Forum (a Swiss
nonprofit foundation) in Davos, Switzerland. Negroponte’s dream
eventually became the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) XO, which sells
for $200 and is meant to put an Internet-capable computer in the
hands of every underprivileged child in the world. The public
responded positively to the idea of a laptop with a hand crank that
would sell for so little money. When OLPC offered the XO in a
give-one/get-one scheme in late 2007, the enthusiasm for this
little computer skyrocketed. Intel and Microsoft quickly followed
the XO down the supercheap, superportable path, and suddenly the
netbook was the fastest-growing segment of the computer market. The
Eee PC may have reached market first, but the XO is the machine
that caught the public’s attention.”

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