Dave Eckhardt wrote:

i'm just amazed they think it's possible to have a
laptop + 1200x900 display for less than $100.

if it were *less* than $100, they'd be
thrilled to sell you one for $100 and use the profit to
make more machines for kids.

Dave Eckhardt

Here's a VideoNow player for less than $30 retail:
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=4012133#Features+%26+Specifications

Take away Wal*Mart's margin and the fancy packaging and it would probably cost $15 fob factory.

Nowhere near the quality of OLPC of course but if you put in a big enough order with a manufacturer of DVD players for a machine replacing the DVD drive with a keyboard, add ethernet and a couple of gigs of flash and you could sell OLPWC (Western Cheapo) for under a hundred dollars and make money on it.

-- 
Wes Kussmaul
CIO
The Village Group
738 Main Street
Waltham, MA 02451

781-647-7178


My uncle likes to say that the world’s biggest troubles started when the serpent said, “Try this fruit, and by the way if a bunch of people collectively calling themselves Arthur Andersen signs something it’s the same as if a person named Arthur Andersen signed it.” I don’t get the serpent and fruit part. Must be some Swiss mythology thing. He can be a bit obscure. 

                         P.K. Iggy
                         _How I Like Fixed The Internet_
                           (Tales from the Great Infodepression of 2009
                           and the prosperity that followed)