Intel enters cheap PC market, slams competition

You wouldn't think the competition to sell cheap computers would get so heated, but Intel has just come out swinging to announce its entry into the sub-$300 PC category, with Vice President and General Manager of the Channel Platforms Group Bill Siu seemingly taking more shots at the MIT Media Lab's Hundred Dollar PC than providing details of his own company's offerings at last week's Intel Solutions Summit, Siu showed off one example of Intel's planned lineup of barebones machines for developing nations (with India and Latin America mentioned as specific markets), claiming that unlike other low cost PC initiatives, the Intel machines provide users with access to the huge library of existing Windows software. What this fails to take into account, however, is that folks in the market for super-cheap computing probably don't have the resources to buy the "latest and greatest" software, which wouldn't even run that well on such "entry-level" configurations anyway. Primping aside, it will be interesting to see whether consumers agree with Siu and Intel chairman Craig Barrett that Nicholas Negroponte's OLPC is little more than a gadgety PDA, or whether free, robust open-source software is more appealing to the budget-conscious geek.

[Via Personal Tech Pipeline]

[Aldo @ Mar 14th 2006 11:49AM]

They might not be able to afford the "latest and greatest" software but you can buy a DVD on the street for less than $5 that has every cracked program that you need. This is especially true for the countries that these computers will be marketed.

[brendan curran @ Mar 14th 2006 3:17PM]

At this point there is truly no need for someone to spend money on software. If an OS comes with the machine, they can load it up with firefox, thunderbird, open office, the gimp for windows(photoshop replacement), and plenty of other high quality titles. At this point i'd be interested in hijacking this thread to ask people to post great windows open source software titles that might not be as mainstream as the ones above. One that I use is called "Synergy" It allows you to use one keyboard, mouse, and clipboard between two computer/monitor's. This is perfect when you have say, a desktop and a laptop.. it lets you seamlessly slide the mouse from screen to screen as if they were the same computer. What are some others that you use?

[Alex @ Mar 14th 2006 3:43PM]

They are just pissed that the OLPC also happens to be "one AMD processor per child." Also, if the machines are going to run Windows applications, they are going to have to have a copy of Windows. That costs $100 all by itself.

[Benko @ Mar 14th 2006 8:30PM]

all software being equal, I would love to see them try to equalize the price / performance ratio between AMD and Intel hardware.. unfortunately I believe they will try to do this only on the very low cost hardware.. i.e. close the gap Celeron vs Sempron (wow we are going to see magical cache size and design changes that cut costs and retain performance for relevant applications) Will it run linux yes!! unless the MS Sponsorship has much say .. remember the 6 Vista flavours being launched .. and the low cost MS win versions must be designed to run on something

[starwxrwx @ Mar 15th 2006 12:11AM]

I don't understand why there isnt a greater push to export old computers to these developing countries? Windows 3.11 (and what came before, and what came after) were good enough for millions of people for a long time, and with linux running easily on legacy hardware, why can't I donate the 4 useless (to me) computers I have (286-Pent II) lying around rather than putting them in landfill?

[Chrsohitper @ Mar 15th 2006 12:58AM]

at the end of the day the gadgety geeks greatly outnumber and outsmart the monkey development going on at Intel and Microsoft. not enough, but atleast in thise sense, human passion beats the dollar bill. if this were not the case, Intel would have a sub $100 computer to beat MIT, Microsoft would have software that actually worked, and the world would be quite a different place.

[dancingphil @ Mar 15th 2006 10:53AM]

That's the longest sentence I've seen in a long time.

"You wouldn't think the competition to sell cheap computers...the huge library of existing Windows software."

Phew.

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