I have been excited about OLPC from the first day I heard about it.

It is just the type of project that I, as a technologist, have always advocated and wanted to see come to reality. OLPC is the type of project that could make a huge difference in a developing country like Costa Rica, or any of the other developing countries around the world.

I have said for years that if I could just manage to feed my family and take care of my own personal responsibilities in the process, that I would run away and just work to help the children of the developing world to make it a better place. It seems like OLPC is trying to do just that. I heard about Intel bowing out about a week ago, and today I read this...

In mid-December, in the hip, Frank Gehry-designed IAC (IACI) building in New York, Intel (INTC) held a small gathering for a dozen or so journalists to preview the corporation's planned showcase at this week's 2008 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. Curiously missing: any mention of a much-anticipated, low-cost laptop, called the XO, for children in developing countries, featuring an Intel microprocessor, with hardware designed by the Santa Clara (Calif.)-based nonprofit, One Laptop Per Child (OLPC). The company had been planning to launch it at CES.

In hindsight, the omission seems prophetic. (Intel spokesperson Chuck Mulloy tells BusinessWeek that the company was still working on the prototype for the Intel-OLPC laptop and wasn't ready to show it to the press in advance.) But leading up to CES, a furious public spat between OLPC's founder, Nicholas Negroponte, a professor on leave from MIT and co-founder of the famed MIT Media Lab, and the chipmaker erupted when Intel first notified Negroponte via e-mail on Jan. 3 that Intel was bowing out of the project. The feud highlights the tumultuous history of OLPC, just as the nonprofit issued the official results of its recent "Give One, Get One" sales promotion, and as Negroponte prepares to give a high-profile speech at CES on Jan. 9 as the closing talk of CES's program, "Technology and Emerging Countries: Advancing Development Through Technology Investments."

Its a shame that corportate and personal egos have come into play, damaging this project. It would seem to me that Intel, Microsoft and others could give away these things and still make a huge profit. PERHAPS this is an opportunity for AMD to step in?

Crossposted to my Business Blog

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