Intel Gives OLPC the Finger

Intel was going to help Nick Negroponte of the One Laptop Per Child program sell his stupid little crappy XO laptops to African orphan children. That is until Negroponte made a ridiculous demand that Intel should never sell any other laptops to any other country that has poor kids in it.

From NewsFactor here:

Intel has pulled out of the One Laptop Per Child initiative to sell millions of low-cost laptops to developing nations. The chip giant cited disagreements with OLPC’s founder, former MIT professor Nicholas Negroponte.

Intel and the OLPC have been bickering over Intel’s initiatives to sell its own low-cost laptop, the Classmate, in many of the same countries OLPC has targeted.

AMD provides the chips for the OLPC machines, but Intel appeared to be getting a piece of the action through an OLPC-designed laptop the Journal reported was to be announced at the 2008 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Instead, according to the Journal, Intel’s representative quit the OLPC board and the hardware has been nixed.

Negroponte demanded that Intel stop selling the Classmate in developing countries. Negroponte also demanded that Intel stop supplying its chips to other laptops marketed to schoolchildren in those countries.

Intel could not accommodate that request.

Roger Kay, a former IDC analyst, did not mince words about the Intel-OLPC breakup and about Negroponte in particular. “He’s a bit of a swashbuckling showman, but when it comes to understanding how to work with partners and run a business, he’s completely clueless,” Kay said. “You can’t tell your partners how to do business, particularly if your partner happens to be Intel.”

The elitism of leftist do-gooders knows no bounds. Negroponte is going down with the OLPC ship on this one.