Mike Miller wrote: > On Sun, 2 Oct 2005, Brian Wall wrote: > >> On 9/29/05, Harv Nelson <harv.nelson at gmail.com> wrote: >> >>> Not just for kids! I need one of these in the shack. So do you >>> >>> http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050929/ap_on_hi_te/hundred_dollar_laptop >> >> >> The hand crank adds a nice touch. In theory, infinite power for >> remote computing. I'm skeptical of the price tag. Even if produced >> by the millions, I don't see how you can find all the parts and still >> make a profit at $100 each. > > > > I don't know that it will be possible to get the cost down to $100 per > laptop, but I think the idea is not to make a profit. It's a charity. > They will get about $100 million and make about 1 million laptops and > they will give them away to poor children. > > Mike > The business model used by Freeplay for their wind-up radios seems like a good fit. They figured they cost around $50 a piece for the units so they sold them at retail in the UK for $100 and used the profit to provide free radios to villages in southern Africa. I could see paying $200 for one of these if I knew that some kid in the developing or third world got one as well. But I also question the ability to get the price down to $100. Supposedly the deal that Apple cut with Samsung for the flash memory in the Nano was about $40/GB and then there's the cost of the chipsets for the cell and 802.11b connectivity. Even if they can get a $12 display, it seems real hard to hit $100 even if you want to build 15M of them. --rick