in my opinion your analysis is correct. Intel is a monopolist in this market. Therefore Intel can produce newer and newer chips, and is able to sell these expensive chips at the market.

Intel drives a strategy “one size fits all”. This company does not differentiate the customers’ needs. For example: I just need my computer to surf in the Internet, watch some youtube videos, write emails, use a wordprocessor like Word to write some documents. That is all I need.

I have a laptop which has a 700 MHZ-processor. For this kind of work the performance is fine. I don’t need to buy a new laptop with more speed.

The problem is: No company sells a fabcric-new laptop with uptodate hardware and software interfaces, combined with a 700 MHZ-processor. The fair price for such a new laptop should then be approximately 300 Euros, not more. The profit margin for a 300 Euro laptop is obviously less than that of a 1.500 Euro laptop.

Why can’t I buy such a laptop today? Because Intel wants to urge the customers to buy their latest high-tech processors. The newer the processors the higher is Intel’s profit margin.

The OLPC project goes the opposite way. They take only hardware power as much as necessary. Then they reduce/ shrink the operating system and all applications to the necessary code. And voila, the complete system runs with such debloated software fast.

The OLPC projects tailors a computer system to the specific needs of learning people. They don’t follow Intels’ strategy “one size fits all”.

OLPC serves their customer needs better than Intel does. That is why Intel uses predatory tactics. Intel fears not only the OLPC project but also the market.

Jan