Intel vice president and general manager of Intel’s Channel Platforms Group Tom Rampone ha said the company is planning to make its low-cost Classmate PC notebook computer available to companies who want to sell it to consumers in developed nations. The low-cost notebook—which originally surfaced an unexpected competition for the OLPC project—was originally aimed at schools and educational institutions in developing nations. However, the surprise success of Asus’ Eee PC has kindled interest in low-cost laptops—an interest some industry players have categorized as a “race to the bottom”—and Intel has apparently decided its Classmate PC is a good candidate for that market.
The company also says it is developing two new version of the Classmate (dubbed the ClassMate 2 and ClassMate 3) which will offer support for a wide range of memory configurations, display sizes, and optional peripherals like cameras. Intel is also developing other low-cost “netbooks,” due to be released later in 2008.
The Classmate PC offers a 7-inch display and a low-power 900 MHz Celeron processor, 512 MB of RAM, 802.11b/g Wi-Fi wireless networking, 100Base-T Ethernet and 2 GB of flash-based storage. The Classmate PC can run Windows or Linux, and vendors will be able to offer the Classmates in a variety of configurations, and may roll in their own software bundles to better target the notebooks at education markets or consumers.
A version of the Classmate PC is already available to consumers in India: HCL Infosystems offers the MiLeap X, a notebook based on the Classmate PC design but aimed at businesspeople and consumers rather than students.
Intel has not offered any word on pricing, but the Classmate PCs sell for $300 to $400, depending on configuration, and Intel says its forthcoming low-cost notebook offerings will be in the $250 to $300 range.
