Quanta to Make $100 OLPC Laptop

December 14, 2005 By Geoff Duncan

Quanta to Make $100 OLPC Laptop

MIT's $100 OLPC laptop will be built by Taiwan's Quanta, which hopes to begin filling orders for as many as 15 million units by the end of 2006.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has inked a deal with Taiwan’s Quanta to manufacture the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) $100 laptop designed by the MIT Media Lab’s Nicholas Negroponte. Quanta is the world’s largest laptop manufacturer, manufacturing systems for HP, Apple, Dell, Gateway, Sony, IBM, Sharp, Fujistu, and other major makers. Quanta will have manufactured nearly one-third of the laptop and notebook computer systems built during 2005.

Under the terms of the deal, Quanta has agreed to devote substantial engineering resources to the OLPC project during the first half of 2006 with the goal of bringing the OPC system to market by the end of 2006. The initial pilot will put one million units in seven culturally diverse countries (China, India, Brazil, Argentina, Egypt, Nigeria, and Thailand) with additional machines allocated to developer communities in other selected countries. The deal enables Quanta to pursue development of a commercial version of the OLPC: the current OLPC project would not have machines available for sale to individuals, but would instead be sold to governments for distribution to children by schools and other organizations.

The OLPC systems are Linux-based and feature a 500 MHz processor, a screen capable of both full color and high-contrast black and white display, 128 MB of RAM and 512 MB of flash memory, four USB ports, wireless broadband (the systems will be configured to create and join impromptu mesh network with other OLPCs right out of the box), and will be able to operate off wind-up power.

Showing 7 comments

RENFORD WILLIAMS at 4:27pm 19th February 2006 this $100laptop look like it is only for countries with large market for a big sale what about us in smale developing countries
Tantrum at 11:53am 22nd December 2005 Haha China has internet laws!? I think there are a whole two laws they have.

1. Don't piss off the Chinese government

2. Piss off the U.S. government

Ever wonder why Microsoft doesn't sell a lot of their products there? Because they rip everything they touch off!!
version at 12:33am 22nd December 2005 Tantrum: your an idiot. do you actually look up anything before you write it down? China has internet laws just like most other countries. They can ban or block any site they wish.

You really think "hackers" would buy this so called toy as you say to start hacking things. What drugs are you on.
Tantrum at 2:24pm 16th December 2005 I think 80% of the world should stay stupid.

More for me :)

BTW this looks like a toy. And I doubt it will ever make it to market. If it does, then expect more hackers from china and other countries without internet laws.
Realistic at 1:11pm 16th December 2005 For Tantrum: wow! is that everything that you can burp about a great initiative or are you the kind-of-freak that believes that 80% of world's population should be stay stupid to make you feel better?
What's amazing is your nerve to make such a stupid comment. Duh.
Tantrum at 9:20am 15th December 2005 It will never make it to market. $100 laptop!? Its called an Etch-a-Sketch....
ECA at 4:32pm 14th December 2005 I would REALLy like to have something like this.