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Peru Orders 260K OLPCs, Mexico to Get 50K

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the see-we're-not-scared dept.

eldavojohn writes "Perhaps in response to recent news that the lawsuit against the OLPC may be a scam, Peru's government has announced they want 260,000 OLPCs and a Mexican billionaire by the name of Carlos Slim has also asked for 50,000 that he wishes to distribute in Mexico. Things are looking good for the OLPC."

5 of 271 comments (clear)

  1. If you had read the other article... by Stony+Stevenson · · Score: 4, Informative

    If people had bothered to read the "OLPC Lawsuit-Bringer Has Past Fraud Conviction" (http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/03/0526202) article, they would have seen that it mentioned Peru's and Mexico's purchasing plans.

  2. Re:Mexico is only ordering 50K? by ThinkingInBinary · · Score: 5, Informative

    Mexico is only ordering 50K?

    Er...

    and a Mexican billionaire by the name of Carlos Slim has also asked for 50,000 that he wishes to distribute in Mexico.

    The article didn't mention Mexico ordering any. Someone ordered them to be distributed in Mexico.

    --
    ttuttle is a rankmaniac
  3. Richest man not just "some Mexican billionaire" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Carlos Slim recently surpassed Bill Gates as the world's richest man. I found it sort of jarring that whoever wrote the summary hadn't seemed to have heard of him.

  4. Re:Wha?! by DragonWriter · · Score: 4, Informative

    I thought they swore that taxpayers would never pay for OLPC? That was one of the main selling points, originally.


    No, in fact, the whole point of the project from the outset was the main market was going to be direct, bulk sales to governments (specifically, national ministries of education) who would distribute them on a one-per-child basis in their educational systems, the reasoning being that only by selling in that manner would (1) they get big enough orders, and (2) the laptops being fully integrated into the educational system to give the most advantage to students and educators.
  5. Re:So... orders make it less of a scam? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    I've seen the OLPC and I can assure you that it works.

    The OLPC is a (non-profit) response to the need to educate children in developing countries. Intel's Classmate is a (for-profit) response to an inexpensive PC that doesn't use Intel's CPUs. Microsoft's $30 Windows/Office package is a (for-profit) response to a free operating system that is "making the news". Can you see the difference? Neither Intel or Microsoft would have created their responses if OLPC did not exist. Why would they?