Portugal Commits To Intel’s Classmate PCs
Portugal’s government gave Intel Corp’s low-cost laptop initiative a boost on Wednesday by pledging to provide elementary school students with 500,000 computers based on the chipmaker’s Classmate PC design.
This is expected to make a wave in Intel’s rivalry with the One Laptop Per Child organization.
In May, the nonprofit OLPC group said its green-and-white XO laptop computers would work with Microsoft Corp. (MSFT)’s Windows in addition to a homegrown Linux-based operating system.
This should make the so-called "$100 laptop," which actually costs about $188, more palatable to education ministers in developing countries who might have balked at an open-source system.
However Intel’s deal for half a million PC’s nearly matched OLPC’s total orders to date – 600,000 units as of May – calling into question whether OLPC’s adoption of Windows has made much difference.
So far, there has been no comment from representatives for Cambridge, Mass.-based One Laptop Per Child.
Intel said it would serve as technology adviser to Portugal’s Ministry of Public Works, Transportation and Communications, which is coordinating the laptop program.
“Parents of young school children will be able to choose between computers running Microsoft Corp.’s Windows operating system and ones with an open-source Linux operating system,” said Intel spokeswoman Agnes Kwan.
The government will distribute the machines to Portugal’s elementary school students over the course of the 2008-2009 school year.
Kwan said as of the middle of this year, "hundreds of thousands" of the Classmate PCs had already shipped to customers in more than 30 countries.
She declined to disclose how much the laptops will cost parents or other financial terms of the deal, but said Portugal’s Ministry of Education is working out pricing details.
Classmate PCs are based on Intel’s design and include its processors, but they are built by other manufacturers and sold under a variety of brand names. The first generation went on sale in March 2007; a heftier version with a faster processor and a bigger screen hit the market in April 2008.
Intel’s Classmate PC and OLPC’s XO are just two of a growing field of small, low-cost computers aimed at the millions of students in developing countries who are just gaining access to technology and the Internet.
The notoriously rocky relationship between Intel and OLPC, whose XO machine uses microprocessors made by Intel competitor Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) (AMD) has been of some concern.
Last summer, the two declared a truce, but earlier this year relations turned frosty again when Intel abruptly pulled out from OLPC’s board of directors.
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