The article in the url link below provides an update on the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) computer that is being developed by Nicholas Negroponte (http://laptop.org/) and details Intel’s recent decision to abandon the project (Issues: Profit, p200). The acrimonious split comes after a troubled relationship that saw Intel publicly supporting OLPC, while also commercially producing its own competing low cost computer:
“After several years of publicly attacking the XO, Intel reversed itself over the summer and joined the organization's board, agreeing to make an $18 million contribution and begin developing an Intel-based version of the computer. Although Intel made an initial $6 million payment to One Laptop, the partnership was troubled from the outset as Intel sales representatives in the field competed actively against the $200 One Laptop machine by trying to sell a rival computer, a more costly Classmate PC. The Classmate sells for about $350 with an installed version of Microsoft Office, and Intel is selling the machine through an array of sales organizations outside the United States.”
It is hard to know what Intel hopes to achieve by competing with Negroponte, whose actions are purely philanthropic. Even if there is a compelling business case to be made for selling low cost computers in developing countries, Negroponte’s goals largely involve sales to governments in order to provide laptops to the neediest children—not an obvious market foundation on which Intel can build a strong market presence. In such a fight, Intel is always going to lose out in the media arena. This would apply even against someone who is not nearly as media-savy as Negroponte, who, for example, frames Intel’s actions as:
''… a little bit like McDonald's competing with the World Food Program.''
Any time the headline of an article that features a firm is along the lines of “Intel Quits Effort to Get Computers to Children,” that firm is losing the PR battle.
Take care
Dave
Bill Werther & David Chandler
Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility
© Sage Publications, 2006
http://www.sagepub.com/Werther
Intel Quits Effort to Get Computers to Children
By JOHN MARKOFF
1414 words
5 January 2008
The New York Times
Late Edition - Final
3
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/05/technology/05laptop.html
