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http://www.classmatepc.com/

See also Equus Computers, a clone vendor we deal with.

Technical innovations like the XO display would not remain an OLPC exclusive for very long.

OLPC's market is the education minister. In the third world, a market an inch wide and a mile deep. His first concern will be the XO's place and performance in the elementary grades.

He may be skeptical of constructionism.

In the expectation that something magical is going to happen if you simply expose the source code of an OS or an application in a grade school classroom.

His second concern will be how well the laptop prepares students for higher education or vocational training. He might easily be forgiven for thinking that Windows and Office are marketable skills.

Probably because when a for-profit company distributes vast quantities of product below cost in an emerging market, it's called "dumping" and is generally frowned upon - especially if its being done by a monopoly player. Now, it may be legal for a charitable foundation to do that but they shouldn't act all surprised if the industry gets jittery about it.

As for the rest of your comments. I'm glad that you have personally read all of the articles, double-checked the citations

As I mentioned previously, I wrote an article on this topic, unlike a slew of bloggers & new media Journalists, I actually do research. Did I speak with the Peruvian minister? No. Did I speak with Negroponte? No. Did Speak with Intel? No.

See they have these nifty little things called press conferences. Designed to give their point of view as much positive spin as possible. Read them. Come to your own conclusions. If you can come up with a reading of the 35 or so articles covering the events just on Thursday that show Intel acting in good faith, you need reading comprehension lessons. A preponderance of the evidence is all that I require, You see, I am not a judge, and the only court I am interested in is the court of public opinion. In that court Intel is Guilty PERIOD.

Still not convinced?, Go back and read a few of the Hundreds of articles covering the span of this saga. Here read the one linked on this page. http://www.classmatepc.com/ Its my favorite. Funny, they don't link to press accounts of them ditching OLPC.

Sorry, you don't think that millions of children in the developing world growing up using (and possibly learning to program) Linux on an AMD-powered system could be even a teensy-weensy threat to MS or Intel?

Ridiculous to say it threatens Intel. Those kids may be Linux kids, Linux doesn't run on Intel anymore? I suppose if we gave them all cell phones it would be a threat to Intel because they contained ARMs. Windows, F*ck em.

Millions of kids will be potential customers to both companies, where before they'd have been lucky to ever see a computer let alone grow up using them. Sounds beneficial to me. But If you look only at the short term, OMG we aren't selling those, I could see how you could delude yourself.

Look at it this way, If OLPC dies due to these two maniacal corporation' shenanigans. What are the odds that they will continue the effort to get these 3rd world countries into the 21st century. Yeah, exactly zero chance. The classmate PC is not a product, it is a blunt weapon used to kill the OLPC, and as soon as it becomes unnecessary Intel will drop it like a nuclear potato.

Lastly, Do I believe everything I read from the WSJ or BBC? Not necessarily, unless it is corroborated by company press releases, project PR, and 50 other reputable news sources. You have some reason for doubting this particular story, I'd love to hear it.

Even for non linux-enthusiastic users, replacing linux by windows on this offer cant be a choice based on a technical and unbiased decision. First, the hardware (i will assume the intel site is updated and match this offer) : http://www.classmatepc.com/classmatepc-system-hardware.html "DDR-II 256M SO-DIMM" Last time i tryed to use windows XP with 256mb ram, it wasn't exactly fast... Add any word processor on the top of it, and you can be sure scrolling on a reasonably small document with images will be a very frustrating XPeriance. With linux on a reasonably light window manager, it run just fine. Then, the software... Mandriva can come packaged with all the program a student need, and with easy "system + program" update mechanisms, while upgrading applications on windows require at least manual install (if picking freesoftware on the top of windows) or more money. Upgrading the OS : how does Nigeria plan to move to the more recent versions of microsoft windows when XP will be unsupported ? It's a 2001 operating system, and every new MS-OS double the hardware requirements. The failure of vista will mitigate the "end of life" timing of XP, but that's just for a time until microsoft can "persuade more people that Vista is good for them". I can understand mandriva guys to be disoriented by this biased fight. Could Nigeria consider dual booting... Or is more important for ballmer to delete linux than to install windows ?

Are you serious? Even Microsoft knows better than to submit 3rd-world kids to "the wow is now..."

Check the specs from http://www.classmatepc.com/ ... 900Mhz, 0 L2 (prominently featured on the page for some reason), 256MB RAM, 1 or 2GB flash, 800x480 screen. Somehow the 2GB version incredibly manages to fit XP Pro (why Pro?) and MS-Office.

Vista would look at this configuration and show a screen of Bill Gates laughing at the user. Hell I doubt even M$ could trim Vista down enough to run in such a configuration, given the bloated piece of crap Vista is. (I wonder what Vista's "experience rating" would be--0.2?)

This is exactly what OLPC needs. Before getting too excited about it, read up on OLPC. Not only does it fail to address real educational concerns, the interface is sufficiently proprietary that these kids aren't going to learn how to use a standard GUI.

Kudos to Microsoft for supporting this platform, and hopefully Classmate PC will be able to bridge this gap with a real system. Certainly the OLPC business model is exciting and I think given the opportunity to buy a student this kind of computer would be something better for students and teachers to work with.

Ostensibly the "One Laptop Per Child" thing was meant to provide computing access to underprivileged youths. Now there's competition in the same market and somehow that's bad? If Intel strong-arms the OLPC project into oblivion but continues to provide the same "philanthropic", so to speak, service, don't the children still benefit?

that is incorrect. Please refer to http://www.classmatepc.com/classmatepc-system-soft ware.html

As stated on both the Intel and Classmate PC websites, it is available in Linux as well as Windows.

http://www.classmatepc.com/classmatepc-system-soft ware.html

two systems designed to do basically the same thing

Use a fake email address if you like, but please tell Intel what you think of their Wal-Mart style business practices in competition with this non-profit org. http://www.classmatepc.com/contact_us.cfm

It'd be one thing if Intel were buying their way into this "market" for whatever reason (cheaper machines = more kids benefitting), but from the article the Intel machine is in fact more expensive so they've had to resort to sending in the spin droids to try to kill the OLPC. Bottom line is Intel prefers less kids with Intel CPUs than more kids with AMD CPUs.

One interesting point is that the OLPC runs Linux while the Intel Classmate runs Linux or Windows XP Professional + Microsoft Office - obviously being provided essentially free by Microsoft. It's hard to see how Intel/Microsoft are doing impoverished developing countries a favor by trying to get kids hooked on Windows vs free software that as adults they'd actually be able to afford.

http://www.laptop.org/laptop/software/specs.shtml

http://www.classmatepc.com/classmatepc-system-soft ware.html

Professor Negroponte says Intel has distributed marketing literature to governments with titles such as "the shortcomings of the One Laptop per Child approach", which outline the supposedly stronger points of the Classmate.

Mr Barrett told CBS: "Someone at Intel was comparing the Classmate PC with another device being offered in the marketplace. That's the way our business works." ...

Countries have until 31 May to place their orders for the first batch [of OLPCs] and will be able to purchase lots of 250,000.

They will initially cost $176 (£90) but the eventual aim is to sell the machine to governments of developing countries for $100 (£50).

Intel says it already has orders for "thousands" of Classmates, which currently cost over $200 (£100).

Like the OLPC machine, Intel expects the price to eventually fall.

Which would you rather use?

Which would you rather use?

Some more info on the Intel Classmate can be found here.

One of the screenies has it. Doubles the price though, I suppose.

http://www.classmatepc.com/photos/cmpc-3.jpg