Why Intel, OLPC Parted Ways

Fortune: Negroponte on Intel’s $100 Laptop Pullout

[ Thanks to lll9 for
this link. ]

“Fortune: What’s the biggest single reason your
partnership with Intel fell apart?

“Negroponte: The biggest single reason was that
they were directly selling their Classmate laptop as opposed to
having it be a reference design. They’re not selling it in this
country because they’d be killed by their biggest customers like
Dell. But in the developing world they are selling directly. It
just set them apart from every single one of our other sponsors
[which include AMD, Google, News Corp., Taiwan’s Quanta Computer
(which builds the XO), and Florida-based distributor Brightstar].
When Intel joined us we thought we could move toward that being a
reference design more and more, and less toward them selling the
Classmate itself…”

Complete Story

The New York Times: Intel Quits Effort to Get Computers to
Children

“A frail partnership between Intel and the One Laptop Per Child
educational computing group was undone last month in part by an
Intel saleswoman: She tried to persuade a Peruvian official to drop
the country’s commitment to buy a
quarter-million of the organization’s laptops
in favor of Intel PCs.

“Intel and the group had a rocky relationship from the start in
their short-lived effort to get inexpensive laptops into the hands
of the world’s poorest children…”

Complete
Story