Intel Leaves Group Backing Education PCs (NY Times) [LWN.net]

Intel Leaves Group Backing Education PCs (NY Times)

Posted Jan 4, 2008 19:02 UTC (Fri) by sbergman27 (guest, #10767)
In reply to: Intel Leaves Group Backing Education PCs (NY Times) by donbarry
Parent article: Intel Leaves Group Backing Education PCs (NY Times)

I don't understand what you are trying to say.  endecotp said that if Intel is selling the
Classmate at below cost that it is an "eliminate the competition" strategy.  I pointed out
that the Classmate is priced 50% *higher* than the competition that they are allegedly trying
to eliminate.  You are saying that the OLPC is a superior machine for the purpose.  How does
that make Intel's higher priced machine more of an "eliminate the competition" strategy?  It
just doesn't make sense.

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It's pointless to just compare price of goods

Posted Jan 5, 2008 12:05 UTC (Sat) by khim (guest, #9252) [Link]

If you have competition with the products - then such comparison is fair if you compare paradigms - it's not. If you want analogy from non-IT field it's like trams (streetcars in U.S.) vs cars. Even if you sell cars way below cost they are more expensive then trams. Yet if someone does this by trying to persuade someone to switch to cars - it's "elimination of completion" because trams only make sense when certain percentage of population use them. Result ? Compare U.S. and Europe (small towns like Zürich are most stricking).

Situation with OLPC vs Classmate is the same: OLPC does have less power then Classmate (that's why it's cheaper) but it's designed to be used in grid and to does not need too much power. Classmate is designed as entry-level product which uses normal bloatware. Even if it's more powerful, faster and more expensive - it'll feed inadequate... Looks similar ?