NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Wednesday, February 1, 2006

Red Hat has joined a closely watched industry initiative aimed at building low-cost notebook computers for children in developing countries. The open-source software company plans to lead the development of an operating system for the $100 machines, the firm said Tuesday.

Some big names in computing are participating in the “One Laptop Per Child,” project, lead by the Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The companies include Google, Advanced Micro Devices, Nortel, News Corp., and Taiwan’s Quanta Computer. The United Nations recently endorsed the effort, but the project also has detractors, including Microsoft and Intel.