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]
