Tech Shout!

All this time when Nicholas Negroponte stormed the developing world trying to pursue buyers for the innovative $175 PCs of his ‘One Laptop Per Child’ education non-profit initiative, he constantly faced competition in the form of Intel.

In fact, Intel’s chairman Craig Barrett had put down Negroponte’s OLPC ‘XO’ machines as mere gadgets. And, all this while, Intel was signing up with international governments for its own “Classmate” PCs.

Besides, Negroponte was suspicious of Intel’s motives since the XO machine runs on processors from Intel’s biggest rival Advanced Micro Devices more commonly referred to as AMD.

Negroponte also went as far as to say that Intel had hurt his mission and “should be ashamed of itself.”

However, things have changed for the two in recent weeks, as Negroponte and Intel CEO Paul Otellini began a series of peace talks.

The latest update is that the two sides have joined forces with Intel joining the OLPC’s board and contributing money and technical expertise to the project.

However, Intel will continue to sell its Classmate PC, which has incidentally gone through a price drop from around $400 to $200. This price drop has attracted buyers in Pakistan, Brazil, Mexico and Nigeria.

Additionally, Intel and OLPC will seek ways to package their low cost computers together.

For instance, Intel’s Classmate, which ahs to be plugged in, might be a good option for governments to deploy in urban schools, while the XO laptops which consume very little power can be mechanically recharged by hand, and could thus go into rural districts.

The first batch of “XO” computers is scheduled to reach developing countries this autumn and will continue to use AMD processors.