low-cost laptops posts - Business Tech

January 7, 2009 5:00 PM PST

The XO laptop.

(Credit: OLPC)

The One Laptop Per Child project announced Wednesday that it is slashing its workforce by 50 percent, reducing salaries for the remaining staff, and restructuring its operations.

Nicholas Negroponte, founder of the group that aims to provide low-cost laptops to children in developing countries, announced the cuts in a company blog post:

Like many other nonprofits that are facing tough economic times, One Laptop per Child must downsize in order to keep costs in line with fewer financial resources. Today we are reducing our team by approximately 50% and there will be salary reductions for the remaining 32 people. While we are saddened by this development, we remain firmly committed to our mission of getting laptops to children in developing countries. We thank team members who are departing for their contributions to this important mission.
Restructuring brings with it pain for some of our friends and colleagues who are being let go. These are people who have dedicated themselves to the advancement of a noble cause, and to say that we are exceeding grateful for the time, the ideas, the energy and the commitment they have given OLPC does not -- cannot -- adequately express our admiration or our gratitude. The fact that there are 500,000 children around the world who have laptops is testament to their extraordinary work and is already a key part of OLPC's legacy.

Negroponte wrote that the company will focus on development of its second-generation device, but will hand-off development of the Sugar operating system to the open source community.

The project recently revived its two-for-one deal on its low-cost laptop. Amazon.com was tapped to handle its Give One, Get One program, launched initially in 2007. Through the program, anyone can pay for two XO laptops; one is shipped to the buyer, and the other is sent to a school kid in a developing nation.

The device comes loaded with both Windows XP and the Linux-based Sugar operating system created for the XO. The inclusion of XP stemmed from concerns that developing nations that wouldn't buy the laptops for its classrooms without the world's dominant OS on it.

However, the Cambridge, Mass.-based group has faced its share of challenges in the three years since it was formed. Its XO laptops initially cost $188 each instead of the anticipated $100, some countries are scaling back their deployment plans. Intel, which was briefly part of the project, quit in January 2008, claiming OLPC was pressuring it not to compete with its own laptops.

Topics:: Corporate and legal

Tags:: OLPC,; XO laptop,; education,; low-cost laptops,; job cuts,; tech downturn

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September 10, 2008 10:06 AM PDT

Study: Low-cost laptops to drive PC market growth

by Erica Ogg

3 comments

Turns out, the sky isn't falling on the PC industry.

That's according to an update from IDC, an analyst firm that tracks the global PC market. Despite economic sluggishness in the U.S., PC shipments have actually increased worldwide more than expected.

Worldwide PC shipments are expected to grow by 15.7 percent this year to reach 311 million units, according to a report released Wednesday by IDC. Growth will slow slightly, but remain above 9 percent through 2012. IDC says that amounts to annual PC shipments reaching more than 482 million in 2012.

This growth is to come despite rising energy costs, slowing IT spending in the U.S. and Western Europe, and the increasing saturation of the PC market in Japan, the U.S., and Europe. So what's behind this recent positive outlook?

Those tiny, Atom-based Netbooks, according to IDC.

Western Europe PC shipments almost doubled to reach 23 percent, up from a 12 percent growth rate in 2007. And it was led by "the wide appeal of low-cost portables" like the Asus Eee PC, the analyst firm says. Western Europe consumer portables grew 60 percent during the second quarter of 2008, and are expected to remain high throughout the rest of the year.

It's important to note that IDC has been fairly conservative when it comes to the potential growth it sees for the low-cost portable market. Rival firm Gartner is predicting 5.2 million Netbooks will sell this year, but reach 50 million in 2012. IDC has said recently it sees 3.5 million Netbooks shipped this year, 5 million next year, and 9.2 million by 2012.

Perhaps with every major PC maker entering this space, it changes things. With more options in choosing a portable PC--different form factors, performance, capability, and cost--consumers are branching out from buying just one PC.

"The right way to gauge the success of consumer PCs is no longer the adoption rate of households with PCs, or even the number of PCs per household, but rather the number of machines per individual," according to Bob O'Donnell, vice president of Clients and Displays for IDC.