Intel Abandons One Laptop Per Child Project January 5, 2008

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Intel has withdrawn its support for the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project which aims to provide children in the developing world with cheap, highly innovative laptops.

The OLPC and Intel have only been shacked up for the last six months but it’s been an uneasy marriage to say the least. OLPC founder Nicholas Negroponte and Intel’s Craig Barrett have both taken stabs at each other in the press. Negroponte has accused Intel of ‘dumping’ lots of its rival Classmate PCs onto the market to undermine the OLPC’s XO laptop while Intel is reputedly claiming that the OLPC wanted Intel to stop selling Classmate PCs for good in favour of pushing XO. Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloy said:

“OLPC had asked Intel to end our support for non-OLPC platforms, including the Classmate PC, and to focus on the OLPC platform exclusively. At the end of the day, we decided we couldn't accommodate that request.”

In an email to Infoworld, OLPC president Walter Bender fired off a few parting shots:

“My expectation was that there's lots of room for cooperation, particularly on software ... [but] I couldn't get Intel interested in helping me with any of those problems. The only thing they [Intel marketing people] were interested in was ... helping them make marketing statements about how Intel's approach to learning was different from OLPC's approach to learning. They weren't interested in how we can learn together and make something better for kids."

I’ve always been a supporter of the OLPC drive but, it’s fair to say, that the OLPC project has suffered quite a few setbacks. Will Intel’s departure really hurt it?-Martin Lynch

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