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One Laptop Per Child Gets 4 Million Laptop Order

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the tall-orders-to-fill dept.

An anonymous reader writes "DesktopLinux.com is reporting that four countries have together ordered 4 million low-cost, Linux-based laptops from the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project. The countries of Nigeria, Brazil, Argentina, and Thailand have each placed the 1 million unit orders."

5 of 419 comments (clear)

  1. Awesome by kernelpanicked · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I have a lot of respect for this project and I'm glad to see it's working out seemingly well.

    Random Thought:

    Wonder if any of the large PC vendors are paying attention, When was the last time Dell or HP sold 1 million+ Windows boxes in one shot?

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    Ubuntu: If at first you don't succeed, blindly slap a sudo in front of it
  2. Re:I guess only one thing can describe ... by qortra · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Cha-Ching!!!

    Is that the sound of a non-profit organization selling laptops at cost? These people will probably make passable salaries courtesy of the organization, but these are not going to be multi-million dollar CEOs and CTOs. Their only major gain here is possibly the minor fame that comes with starting a project like this. In fact, I think most of the companies involved are selling the parts are near cost. The fact is that everybody wants to get a choke-hold on emerging markets (the same markets that these target); but even if that happens for AMD and the like, I don't think Negroponte or any other "owner" is going to be exploiting starving children or their poor governments in order to buy shiny red Ferraris.

  3. Riots? by weasello · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Last time cheap laptops went on sale/given away there were so many rioting and fighting people that several were hospitalized. I wonder how a 3rd world country would deal with giving away these laptops, and how long they'll stay in the hands they are given to.

  4. Re:Didn't RTFA but... by Arker · · Score: 5, Interesting

    They come standard with wireless mesh and connection sharing, IIRC. The idea being that the school can get at least one of them connected, then they all are. Things they all need still only need to be downloaded once, then shared peer to peer over the much faster wireless connection, so it should be quite useful.

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    Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
  5. Re:good idea by gsslay · · Score: 5, Interesting
    These people will have a choice between gaining literacy and skills, and maybe starting businesses to further their local economy, or gain literacy and skills to spam and scam once they learn that the rewards outweigh the risks for them.

    How is this different from any new people anywhere in the world? Or is it just all those shifty, foreign people in developing nations you suspect as criminals in the making?

    Interesting fact: the US (the world's richest nation) accounts for the majority of all spam, at 23.2%. "These people" have more to fear from the the outside world than you do from them.

    But of course you're right. Let's keep the internet safe for the gullible rich, and out of the hands of wily poor people who, as we all know, have no morals and want to take our money. Keep 'em backward and ignorant I say.