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MIT FINDS $ 100 OLPC LAPTOP MANUFACTURER
Taiwan's Quanta to manufacture MIT's $ 100 laptop for poor children
Quanta of Taiwan will be the manufacturer for the OLPC's $ 100 laptop for
poor children.
16th December 2005: Intel's Craig Barrett thinks its a gadget, not a laptop. he thinks that the poor of the world needs full fledged computers, not a gadget. Whether he likes it or not, Taiwan's Quanta is going to manufacture the MIT's $ 100 laptops for the world's poor. The laptops will be sold to governments who will then distribute them to schools followinf the basic principle of one laptop per child.
Taiwan's Quanta, according to some reports, is the world's largest manufacturer of notebook computers. Thsi writer, frankly, has no clue about that. But if it is true, Craig Barret surely has reason to be pissed.
Nicholas negroponte, the visionary behind the poor child's laptop wants the 'gadget' to have WiFi and an open-source operating system such as Linux. What flavour of Linux will finally find its way to the $ 100 laptop is not clear as yet. There will be a word processor, it will have a browser and an email client. The machine will have a hand crank that can power it, considering that several of the remote villages where the laptop will find its way may not have electricity at all.
Quanta was chosen by the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) board after reviewing bids from several computer manufacturers. Nicholas Negroponte is the chairman of the OLPC.
The idea of a $ 100 laptop itself is shocking - that it could be made so cheaply, and there were several willing to manufacture it.
Nicholas negroponte is the founder of the OLPC club. The mission of the organization is to design, manufacture, and distribute inexpensive laptops to enable every child in the world to have due access to knowledge and modern forms of education.
Quanta, the company chosen for manufacture of the cheap MIT laptop, has said that it will bring the product to market by the end of 2006.
OLPC has said that Quanta will dedicate a major chunk of Quanta Research Institute's resources in the first half of 2006, with a target of bringing the product to market in the fourth quarter of next year.
Quanta expects to benefit from the massive project by reinventing production processes through the sharing of research and development resources with other leading global companies.
According to Quanta, they will definitely not lsoe any money on the OLPC $ 100 laptop project. The laptops, after manufacture, will make their way to seven countries namely, China, India, Brazil, Argentina, Egypt, Nigeria and Thailand. Five million to 15 million $100 laptops are to be made. Each of the seven countries will be allocated 1 million laptops each.
In 2007, the OLPC club will approach other major manufacturers such as Apple, dell and Hp to discuss a commercial version of the poor kid's laptop.
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