

One Laptop Per Child Project Works With Marvell to Produce a $100 Tablet - px
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/27/olpc-partners-with-marvell-to-launch-100-tablet/?ref=technology

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rbanffy
While OLPC may not be a huge success in its original goal, it has had a huge
impact on the computer market.

I owe my netbook to Negroponte and the OLPC folks. Without the pressure, I
doubt notebook manufacturers would ever contemplate this segment.

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macemoneta
The goal of the OLPC project was to get low cost computers to children that
couldn't otherwise afford them. Before OLPC, a 'cheap' laptop cost $1500, with
many over $2000. Now, 40 million netbooks - most under $400 - are in people's
hands. A secondary used market allows people to get used netbooks for under
$200 (thanks, EBay). We all owe a debt of gratitude to OLPC.

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starkfist
Did OLPC have anything to do with this? It seemed more like the asian computer
makers thought it would be a good idea to roll out machines their own citizens
could afford, since it's a gigantic market.

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macemoneta
Initially, no manufacturers were willing to do this. OLPC began designing and
spec'ing the initial machine themselves, then worked with an ODM for
manufacture. When countries started showing interest, other manufacturers
(like Intel) started jumping in to get market share. Once sales commitments
hit million unit counts, many manufacturers (ASUS, ACER, MSI) jumped in, later
to be followed by OEMs like Dell and HP.

If OLPC hadn't forced the issue, no one would have cut their manufacturing
costs and margins to this level.

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tseabrooks
This is my memory also. Manufacturers were saying that no one wanted the low
powered machines... It wasn't until OLPC was able to sell some of theirs with
the buy 1 get 1 and the EEEPC (I own a first generation 7 incher) went on sail
and people snapped them up so quickly that I had to stalk the local micro
center to get the wife one for christmas... Did the other manufacturers think
there might be a market for this.

Now we can get a 1.6 Ghz laptop with wifi + camera +windows XP for under 200$
(Saw the Acer netbook for 189 the other day!). Frankly, while they were never
able to hit their 100$ sweet spot I think the OLPC project has been a massive
success.

Heck, we may even be able to attribute the push for the cloud... and cloud
based applications running in a browser... to the low powered laptop movement
started by the OLPC project.

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maushu
I found funny the jab the guy did at Apple's excuse for closed-source
software: "[...] we’ll run anything, including viruses and Flash."

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rbanffy
Unless there are viruses that can run on Android/Sugar and/or Windows Mobile,
it's a ludicrous jab.

It's a given it won't run desktop Windows.

OTOH, if the ARM in it is fast enough, it could emulate a Pentium II or III at
native speed. That should be able to run a couple viruses.

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iamcalledrob
I am skeptical about the final product looking anywhere near as good as their
rendering does...

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misterbwong
An Android powered iPad clone for ~$100 is already selling:

Relevant submission: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1386333>

