$100 laptop starts selling... for $200

 

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By Reuters

Posted on 30 Oct 2007 at 08:23

The computer developed for the world's poor children, dubbed "the $100 laptop," has reached a milestone: It is now selling for $200.

The One Laptop per Child Foundation, founded by MIT Professor Nicholas Negroponte, has started offering the lime-green-and-white machines in lots of 10,000 or more for $200 apiece on its website.

Those laptops are for purchase by donors who designate where they are to be sent through a program recently launched by the foundation to help finance the product's launch.

Two weeks ago, a foundation executive reiterated recent statements that it cost $188 to build the computer, up from its $150 price tag in February and an original $100 price.

It is unclear why the price of the machines in the donor program is above that $188 cost, and the foundation declined to elaborate.

The laptops are scheduled to go into production next month at a factory in China, behind the original schedule and in quantities that are a fraction of Negroponte's earlier projections.

It is unclear when the machines will be ready for customers, as the website claims version 1 of the software that runs the machine will not be ready until 7 December.

Breakthrough price

When Negroponte said he could produce the laptops for $100, industry analysts said it had the potential to shake up the PC industry, ushering in an era of low-cost computing.

He hoped to keep the price down by achieving unprecedented economies of scale for a start-up manufacturer, and in April, he said he expected to have orders for 2.5 million laptops by May, with production targeted to begin in September.

But that has not panned out. So far the foundation has disclosed orders to three countries - Uruguay, Peru and Mongolia. It has not said how many machines they have ordered.

Wayan Vota, an expert on using technology to promote economic development who publishes a blog that monitors the group's activities, estimates orders at no more than 200,000 laptops.

"One-hundred dollars was never a realistic price. By starting with an unrealistic price, he reduced his credibility selling the laptop," Vota says.

Negroponte, a charismatic technologist who counts News Corp chief Rupert Murdoch and Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim among his friends, has attracted a lot of attention for the foundation.

Last week, Microsoft revealed it is trying to tailor Windows XP to work on the machine and claimed it is a few months away from knowing for sure whether it can accomplish that task.

Earlier this year the foundation teamed up with Intel, which is developing a rival machine. The two may work together on a second-generation laptop. This first machine runs on a microprocessor developed by Intel rival AMD.