On 60 Minutes last night (the news show your grandparents watch) - about the initiative to get laptops to children in poor countries.

Here are some quotes:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/05/20/60minutes/printable2830058.shtml

Let me see if I have your complaint correct...
1) Someone started a program to sell cheap system to third world countries in hopes of raising the computer literacy rate in those areas.
2) Another company had the audacity of offering one of those countries an even cheaper alternative.

I fail to see the problem here. It sounds like a win win situation for the kids in these areas. At a cheaper price, the governments are even more likely to go along with purchasing the systems for the kids in their countries. Hopefully, they will buy even more of them at this cheaper price. Since that is Dr. Negroponte's stated goal, what is the error? Is he just annoyed the someone else is the one to do it? Is he worried that someone may steal some of his spotlight or headlines?

Well, only Intel fanboys are going to be surprised at this. I think most sane people have realised by now that Intel is a pretty typical corporation, and acts like a pretty typical corporation. It's got a lot of power, and it uses its power in ways that often will run contrary to the preferences of many.

The problem isn't Intel; it's the worldwide acceptance of corporate status, whereby companies are allowed the rights of an individual (a corporation is a legal person), but evade any responsibility. Sensible revision of this legal framework is a necessity (but somehow I think it might not be in certain people's interest... i.e. the people who run the world).

I was thinking the same thing. Sounds like he wants to be the one in the limelight. Or he's catching some major kickbacks from people to do it and is worrying about his honeydew pot drying out.

I am such a cynic. I was wondering how long this would take to happen. When I first heard about the $100 laptop and the One Laptop Per Child effort, I figured it was only a matter of time before some large corporation decided to railroad a true humanitarian effort for their own gain. Shame it had to be Intel

Negroponte is the unwilling collateral damage of big business. I don't gather it's a personal thing against Negroponte, but I can understand why he perceives it that way. Bottom line, it all comes down to numbers, profit, tax write-offs, and winning government favor.

And...

Not really, that's the way Intel works.

It's a shame that Intel just can't donate the low cost laptops to Negroponte so he could use his existing network and follow the One Laptop Per Child program. But then again, there's no profit or government favor if the laptops are donated, Intel would be stuck with a substantial tax write-off. In the dash to gain market share and get the Intel brand out into another market niche, the unfortunate losers are going to be the very children Intel intends to help.

Yeah . . . I saw it.

Anyone who defends Intel dumping a product below price to put Nicholas Negroponte out of business is lower than whale poop. Craig Barrett looked rather **shifty** when presented with the hard-copy evidence.

It just goes to show you how vicious a corporation can be with their attempts to damage a competitor.

And that really is a cool idea that Negroponte has. Sign me up, Nicholas!

I don't believe a word out of this guy's mouth and it doesn't have jack to do with Intel. He says there's no profit in it at all but then gets upset when someone else has a cheaper and supposed better laptop for children that smells fishy to me. He says he needs 3 million orders to be able to make them in bulk at 176 dollars a laptop that's $528,000,000 it's easy to see why he's becoming upset with Intel. He's clearly making some money in there somewhere.

Heaven forbid someone like Intel wanting to jump on that bandwagon I mean making money is such an evil thing after all.

I was thinking the same thing. Sounds like he wants to be the one in the limelight. Or he's catching some major kickbacks from people to do it and is worrying about his honeydew pot drying out.

You miss the point. The One Laptop Per Laptop effort is not-for-profit. Not-for-profit companies only recoup enough to cover expenses. The laptops are given away to the children, not sold. Intel wants to make a profit on the effort, that is not a win-win for the countries or people's having to pay for them. Dell makes a cheap laptop, why not just tell the 3rd world countries to order one from www.dell.com?!

If you read about the project, Negroponte went to Intel for support and they pretty much told him to go pound sand. Negroponte found alternatives to make the project happen. Now that the project has seen some success and Negroponte has proven that it will work, Intel is attempting to railroad and capitalize on the effort.

Why can't Intel just donate the low cost laptops to the One Chil Per Laptop program? Why are they peddling influence and marketing materials to the same countries Negroponte is working in?

To think Intel's primary motivation is a humanitarian effort is just niave. For Intel it is about profit, government favor, peddling influence, and tax incentives.

Why can't AMD donate? Fu[i][/i]ck it, Intel saw it would work and decide to get in on it. Pardon me for being a cynic.

I was thinking the same thing. Sounds like he wants to be the one in the limelight. Or he's catching some major kickbacks from people to do it and is worrying about his honeydew pot drying out.

If you read about the project, Negroponte went to Intel for support and they pretty much told him to go pound sand. Negroponte found alternatives to make the project happen. Now that the project has seen some success and Negroponte has proven that it will work, Intel is attempting to railroad and capitalize on the effort.

Why can't Intel just donate the low cost laptops to the One Chil Per Laptop program? Why are they peddling influence and marketing materials to the same countries Negroponte is working in?

To think Intel's primary motivation is a humanitarian effort is just niave. For Intel it is about profit, government favor, peddling influence, and tax incentives.
Oh no doubt it's about making money just unlike most people here I don't think making money makes someone evil. Let me find out Intel is killing people and doing car bombings or using weapons of mass destruction to make money then I'll care about the company making money. Are they being immoral perhaps but your talking about a half a billion dollar deal someone's feelings is going to get hurt when dealing with that much money and at the end of the day I doubt it's going to be Intel.

Oouh how horribly of them. I suggest changing the title to "Intel kills little children" and don´t forget to post the PR archive footage of a black, starving, nigerian child with fleas on his head...

If i would work for some revolver magazine where big letters equate information, truth and sales i´d hire you in no time.

No offense, but you're just arbitrarily limiting the frame of the description of someone's actions to what is directly observable. If you don't feed your child properly, for instance, you haven't necessarily "killled" them, but I think nonetheless we can say that your actions are awful.

Now, making money is morally arbitrary, I take it. It's how you make it that matters. If, by 'merely' making money, you systematically hold people back in a state of poverty whereby people will die that otherwise would have lived, I'm not sure why that's somehow far more acceptable than just lining them up and shooting 1 in 5. I'll grant you that Intel haven't done anything quite that bad, but it's still not exactly morally clean, is it?

I recommend 'Lord of War' as an excellent exploration of these issues. I don't know the answers myself, but I like people to think about them.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/05/20/60minutes/printable2830058.shtml

C'mon...lighten up.

No such admission from Intel. 'Nuff said...

Hollywood and Nicolas Cage aren´t Reporters, Scientists or anything else that even remotely enables them to produce somethng of documetary worth. Watching cartoons would probably be a better source for moral themed topics.

From what I understand AMD is one of the main parties behind the initiative.

http://www.laptop.org/