Classmate PCs head to Libya

 

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By Reuters

Posted on 31 Oct 2007 at 08:50

Intel and Microsoft are supplying the Libyan government with 150,000 Classmate PCs, which cost $200 to build and are designed to meet the needs of children in developing countries.

Intel spokeswoman Agnes Kwan says that Libya's education ministry ordered the equipment in August and shipments began last month.

"So far it's going well. We're just a month into the deployment," Kwan says.

The sale of the devices was reported by Libya's domestic press in August, she said, but Intel and Microsoft have yet to discuss it outside of that country.

Kwan said that Intel and Microsoft are not subsidising the price of the laptops and did not disclose how much the Libyan education ministry is paying for them.

She also said that Intel had signed up Nigeria as a Classmate PC customer, though she said she did not know how many machines the government would order, or whether they would run on Windows or the rival Linux operating system.

The sale of the Classmate PCs to Libya is Intel's second-largest since it launched the product last year. In April it won an order to provide 700,000 of them to Pakistan's Allama Iqbal Open University.