Coins DIG

Nicholas Negroponte, head of the charity, stated that Intel repetitively undetermined its non-for-profit scheme, meant to provide cheap laptops to children living in developing countries.

He accused the chipmaker of covert sales tactics. Nicholas Negroponte also stated that the company is trying to block contracts to acquire his machines.

It is worth mentioning that the groups gathered in July 2007 after a series of argues but in the end the decided to split last week.

In response to Negroponte's accusations, Paul Otellini, the head of Intel, said that all the talk regarding the failure to deliver laptops on promise were "hogwash."

"I don't want to get into specifics but we met every obligation that we were committed to," said Otellini.

The discussion continued with the statement coming from Professor Negroponte, who responded: "My version of events is not hogwash. Why would I throw away the six million dollars they were supposed to give us yesterday? Why would I do all of these things unless I was stark raving mad?" According to Negroponte the company had left after a series of rows.

"They were selling laptops with their brand on it directly to exactly the same people we were talking to. They would go in even after we had signed contracts and try to persuade government officials to scrap their contract and sign a contract with them instead. That's not a partnership," he added.

Professor Negroponte gave an example about what happened in Peru, where the sales staff of the chipmaker attempted to convince Oscar Becerra Tresierra, the vice-minister of education of Peru, to purchase the Intel Classmate PC. The country made an order of 270,000 XO laptops from OLPC. He said that such events had taken place "time and time and time again".

He added: "Each time it happened they said they would correct their ways. It's a little like cheating on your spouse, or alcoholism, or something you just can't eventually fix and we had to finally part ways."

According to Intel's officials the parties had split due to the fact that OLPC was the one to ask Intel to stop "support for non-OLPC platforms, including the Classmate PC, and to focus on the OLPC platform exclusively".

Intel's head told that: "The premise that we actually divorced over is that there is not one solution. No one company, no one solution has a monopoly on kids."

Both companies' laptops are made for use by children living in developing countries. The XO laptop, the price of which according to the makers will presumably be $100, includes a sunlight readable display and it runs on open source software. The processor incorporated in the machine was manufactured by AMD, Intel's chipmaker rival.

Some more expensive machines from Intel will run on Microsoft Windows. These machines represent a part of the company's wider education program.

"Intel has invested a billion dollars over the last 10 years alone in education around the world," outlined Mr Otellini.