OLPC ponders 'give one, get one' laptop offer for Europe

IDG News Service - Europeans interested in the One Laptop Per Child Project's XO laptop may soon have the chance through a "give one, get one" offer similar to that offered in North America last year.

"At some point we might do it in Europe," said Walter Bender, OLPC's president, in an interview Friday.

Under the "give one, get one" program offered in Canada and the U.S., customers could buy an XO laptop for $400 and a second XO laptop would be donated to a developing country. Each XO laptop currently costs around $188.

OLPC hasn't yet made the offer available in Europe because the XO has not received the necessary certifications to be sold there. "We haven't finished all that stuff, so we couldn't do it in Europe yet," Bender said.

Whether or not OLPC does make the XO available in Europe remains to be determined, and such an offer remains under consideration. "We may or may not do it," Bender said

From OLPC's perspective, the "give one, get one" offer helped large numbers of people in North America get involved with the group's efforts to bring computing to children in developing countries, Bender said.

"A lot of people [are] jumping in to the software, to learning and to support. ...That's what I was hoping Intel would do, but they didn't. The public is doing it instead," he said, referring to Intel's acrimonious departure last week from OLPC's board of directors.

OLPC has so far shipped around 50,000 XO laptops to North American customers under the "give one, get one" program, and more remain to be shipped, Bender said. The number of customers who ordered laptops under the program was not immediately available, but as many as 150,000 units may have been donated through the program.