OLPC president Walter Bender retorts
Having only joined the OLPC in January 2007, Intel have today pulled out of the project designed to provide cheap laptops to children in developing countries.
Intel spokesperson Chuck Molly states "OLPC had asked Intel to end our support for non-OLPC platforms, including the Classmate PC, and to focus on the OLPC platform exclusively. At the end of the day, we decided we couldn't accommodate that request."
The relationship between OLPC and Intel had always been a sketchy one at best and Walter Bender, president of OLPC has struck out against the giant semiconductor manufacturer stating that "We never really got much going with Intel to have an impact".
"The only thing they were interested in was helping them make marketing statements about how Intel's approach to learning was different from OLPC's approach to learning," he added. "They weren't interested in how we can learn together and make something better for kids"
Though it is widely reported that Intel contributed millions toward the OLPC project during its involvement in the past six months, it appears to be a bitter end to an edgy relationship and further bad news for the struggling OLPC project.
