WengOnline

In the news last week was OLPC and Intel bury the hatchet—for the children. It says that:

After years of squabbling, Intel and Nicholas Negroponte have agreed to put their differences behind them and join forces in bringing PCs to children around the world.

Negroponte’s One Laptop Per Child project is bringing Intel on board as a partner and a possible future supplier, the two entities announced Friday morning. Intel will become the 11th member of the OLPC’s board, joining other companies such as Google, eBay, Nortel and Intel’s bitter rival Advanced Micro Devices.

It is no longer of ‘if’ they can create a $100 laptop, with the two best producers of processors on board, its just a matter of ‘when’. When they reach critical mass, that’s when they would probably reach that optimum price. Locally, we see refurbished PCs hoovering at about $130-150, but those are running at least P3-500 processors, most of which came from schools and offices. Most of these cast-offs are clunky old desktops—not very portable—and they presuppose that the kids have another one at home with which to practice whatever they have learned in school.

A growing trend here is the availability of internet connections in university and school labs for use of all students, much the same way that internet cafes have dotted the provincial landscape. These cafes have the latest PCs and fast broadband access. Previously used only for chatting and checking email, they have now eveloved into a shared office space for some small businesses. Amid the din of MMORPGs and FPS, some users update their resumes, do research for homework, and try to chat with their family members abroad.

Will Swope, a corporate vice president and general manager of corporate affairs at Intel mentioned that “Three years from now, there’s going to be any number of companies that have products that solve opportunities in the education environment.”

How true. In much the same sense that years ago, Microsoft dominated the school systems here. Now, Linux has already made its mark, with with some universities switching to the cheaper to obtain OS. If you start off with the basic idea of an operating system for any PC with a fresh user, it doesn’t matter if you teach them Linux or Windows, they start out with the same learning curve. It is when we get used to the tools of our trade running on a specific OS that we get tied to it. Sysad friends have long ben switching to and from both OSes without any problems, one can get the same tasks accomplished whether one uses Windows or Linux. As the old cliche goes, there are many ways to skin a cat.

My 4-year old cousin kept calling my laptop a TV because that is what she is familiar with, and perhaps nobody ever told her the difference between a laptop and a TV, yet. A few years later, maybe, when I show her how to use a PC with either Linux or Windows, I doubt she’ll notice anything different. Both of them now have rich GUIs, although Vista sure is promising a new experience.

I haven’t jumped the gun yet for this new OS, although I am seriously thinking of fixing up my PC to be a dual-boot system, one part running Ubuntu, one part Windows. I’m just keeping my Windows for the games and some apps, but I hope to achieve the same productivity on an alternative OS.

Going back to Intel and AMD, would working on the same project increase the speed at which they develop new technology? By cooperating in this project, they are bound to bring their best foot forward. If you both produce the same product, wouldn’t you want to outshine the competition even on a ‘pet project’? It could, potentially, earn you millions in ‘free’ publicity.