Times Online reports that Nicholas Negroponte's dream of building a $100 laptop for underprivileged children around the world was undermined by giant corporations in various ways. The Times says, "Microsoft tried to kill it with words, while Intel tried to kill it with dirty tricks"

The $100 laptop was the idea of Nicholas Negroponte, who first mentioned it at the World Economic Forum at Davos in 2005. It was a low-cost solar-powered device targeted at underprivileged children around the world. The whole idea was to spread enlightenment and freedom of information. Large, cash-rich corporations were initially gung-ho about the project and pooled in money and support. Then, as Times puts it, 'some of them tried to kill it' and they succeeded. Well, almost! The following quote from Negroponte sums things up, "I had wildly underestimated the degree to which commercial entities will go to disrupt a humanitarian project."

Three years on, the OLPC Foundation (One Laptop Per Child) has managed to produce one cheap laptop the solar-powered XO. It still costs $190, and has sold only 370,000 so far - a far cry from the numbers originally envisioned.

Reason 1: Microsoft
This laptop was going to be cheap. Microsoft had objections because they go to enormous trouble to ensure their products are expensive, and necessary. This laptop certainly went against their cause.

Reason 2: Intel
Being a cheap product, the $100 laptop was always going to be a mass product, produced in large numbers. Market leader Intel definitely did not want millions of cheap AMD chips out in the market, which could have significantly impacted its unchallenged market share.

Reason 3: Microsoft, again
Another reason was the software. No Microsoft or Apple here. The XO uses Sugar, a custom-based interface for the Fedora Core. Ethan Beard, a former OLPC board member representing Google, says, "This was a project that could operate outside the regular business world, and that's not an unreasonable expectation."

When things look like they could potentially hurt their business, large businesses - the Big Boys - react in ways that could hurt. Intel went ahead and made their own cheap laptops, the Classmate, while Bill Gates was overheard saying, "Jeez, get a decent computer".

The article points that the stand taken by Intel and Microsoft is similar to the stand by large drug companies who, instead of working for the illnesses that plague the poor, (such as malaria) choose to focus on low-volume, high-margin drugs for cancer, heart ailments and diabetes.