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Negroponte: "Intel should be ashamed of itself" for dumping its low cost PC
Go figure, but the "purely humanitarian" battle to provide the world's estimated 1 billion poor children with a computer is as hostile as a chance-meetup of Rockers and Mods. Apparently, it all started when Intel's Chairman, Craig Barrett (pictured right), called the OLPC "a $100 gadget." Whatever the reason, last night's 60 Minutes had Nicholas Negroponte claiming that for-profit Intel is dumping its Classmate PC -- offering it below cost -- on the same governments he's offering his not-for-profit OLPC. "Intel should be ashamed of itself," Nick Neg says, "It's just -- it's just shameless." Negroponte offers an Intel marketing document which outlined the shortcomings of the OLPC approach (compared to the Classmate PC) as "proof" of Intel's wrong-doings. True, says Barett taking credit for the document, "that's the way our business works." All this because the OLPC features an AMD processor? Maybe, but it sure sounds like sour-grapes to us. Assuming you buy into Negroponte's premise of supplying the world's poor with computers, then who really cares if the children use a computer spawned of monetary self-interest or (supposedly) altruistic motivations -- just as long as the kids can play Doom on something?
